


Here I Stand

by StormDancer



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Bullying, M/M, OT5 Friendship, ziam endgame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-29
Updated: 2014-08-29
Packaged: 2018-02-15 07:26:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 40,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2220630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormDancer/pseuds/StormDancer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zayn lifts his chin, turns so that he’s facing Harry. He doesn’t look at Liam, because he can’t bear to look, and because he’s really not trying to be mean or pointed. Liam can do what he wants. But Zayn drew a line in the sand a long time ago, and it matters. “I’m not hiding, Haz. This is who I am. They can deal with it.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here I Stand

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has been sitting complete on my computer for ages, so I am posting it in honor of Liam's birthday today! Much love to my betas Celia and Marsha, as always. Don't own, don't know anything.

Zayn hates new schools.

To be fair, he hates a lot of things, including, but not limited to: Brussels sprouts, racists, Dickens, sounding stupid, people who make his sisters cry, and when it’s hot enough that the gel runs out of his hair and he ends up looking like a kid again. But new schools might just be the worst. At least he has his parents’ solemn oath that this is the last one before university. One year here—one full year.

And also to be fair, because Zayn is reluctantly good at being fair, this isn’t the worst a school could be. It’s already been two periods and no one’s called him a dirty Paki, which isn’t always true, and there’s no obscene graffiti on his locker, and there are only a few vapid types around. On the other hand, people are definitely staring. He doesn’t know if it’s because of the tattoos or the leather jacket or his skin or, hell, just that he’s that good looking, but he wonders what they’ll do when he pulls out a cigarette. He thinks he can hold off until lunch, just to save them all from combusting. But he still shivers a little beneath the stares, pulls up his jacket to shield him from them. He wishes it were the summer again, the sun shining over the lake, curled up into a warm, comforting body

But it isn’t. And Zayn’s made a policy, almost a religion, of accepting that which he cannot change, so he settles into a chair towards the back of English class (not too far back, he already looks enough like a troublemaker, and he does like English, but not too far forward, because there’s nothing worse than being branded a teacher’s pet). He puts on enough of a scowl to warn away anyone who thinks to take pity on the new kid, and pulls out his copy of _A Portrait of Dorian Gray_ to pass the time. He’s lucky he grabbed it to take up his time at lunch, really; this is probably the first time he’s been early to a class in years.

“Your tattoos are really cool!”

Zayn pulls his book down far enough to look at the person who had thrown himself into the chair next to him. He gets an impression of a lot of limbs, a wide, dimpled smile, and curls before the boy keeps talking. He has an odd mixture of slow voice and energetic manner that’s weirdly endearing. “I’ve been thinking of getting some, but I’m underage, and I don’t have any good ideas, except for this one with a butterfly, which Louis says is stupid, but he doesn’t have any tattoos so I don’t think he can talk, and it would be awesome anyway, and I feel like they should mean something, you know?”

Zayn blinks. But the combination of scowl and book clearly aren’t putting the lad off, and he’s hot in a cute sort of way, so, “They could just mean you think they look cool, yeah?”

The other boy’s eyes widen, awestruck. “I never thought of it like that!” He sticks out his hand. “Harry Styles.”

Zayn sets down his book to take his hand. Harry’s got a nice large grip, even if his shake is a little overly enthusiastic, and his fingertips are calloused. He’s got a pre-Raphaelite face, and the light hits it right to make it almost angelic. “Zayn Malik. I’m new.”

“Trust me, I know.” He gives Zayn the sort of look that makes him think this is actually a thing that could happen. “I’d have noticed you.”

“Oh really?” Zayn curls his lips into a smirk, and holds onto Harry’s hand a beat too long before he teacher comes in and he turns to the front.

It’s normal first day of class sort of class; a lot of administrative stuff and some review of stuff Zayn covered at his last school, nothing interesting at all. Zayn spends his time doodling across the pages of his notebook: the kid in front of him with the lopsided collar, the teacher’s sharp nose, Harry, out of the corner of his eye, because he’s got interesting proportions that shouldn’t work but do. At one point, the neck of the boy in front of him gets thicker, broader, with strong muscles made for licking and a splash of a birthmark—Zayn glares at it and turns the page. Accept what can’t be changed, and that’s one of those things.

Finally, finally, class is over, and Zayn slides his notebook into his messenger bag and debates having a cigarette versus looking for the cafeteria. He’s leaning towards cigarette when Harry leans over. “Want to come to lunch?”

Zayn usually likes more lead up, maybe a little more flirting, but he’s not averse to forwardness. He raises an eyebrow, though, to check. Harry blushes, a stain of pink over his cheeks making him look more cherubic than anything else. “With me and my friends, I mean—not—if you don’t have anyone else to eat with.”

That makes more sense, really. Zayn’s not sure he wants to jump into anything so soon after the summer, especially when this boy is still mainly a mystery to him, even if that mystery has too much charm and adorable dimples. But he’d be glad of friends. It’s always easier with some sort of people around. “Sounds good.”

He shoulders his bag, waits for Harry to toss his pen into his backpack and throw it over his shoulder. Then Harry ushers him out of the room—and the hand on the small of his back, or maybe lower, says a lot different from the blush.

\---

The cafeteria is nothing special either—linoleum floors, green plastic chairs, fake wood tables in groups seating anywhere from four to twenty. Harry stays behind him as they get food, dimpling at the lunch ladies in a way that gets him—and Zayn, when it becomes clear he’s with Harry—an extra serving of the lasagna that looks a little less than halfway decent. Then he leads Zayn to the back corner of the room, where a wall of windows meets a cinderblock wall, so the light floods in clear and crisp as the fall air.

There are two other boys already sitting there, one with blonde hair going dark at the roots and broad shoulders under a tank top, the other with brown hair Zayn knows from experience is carefully styled and braces on over a striped shirt.

“Hey!” Harry chirps as they get within earshot. The two boys look over. The blonde has an open face and a grin; braces has cheekbones almost as sharp as Zayn’s and a cheeky smile that fades into narrow-eyed suspicion when he sees Zayn. “This is Louis and Niall. Lads, Zayn. He’s new.”

Harry takes the seat next to Louis. Zayn hovers a moment, because Louis is still giving him an arch, wary look.

“Do you have a motorcycle too, then?” he asks at last. His voice is high for a man’s, sharp and clipped.

Zayn gives him an even stare back. He has the air of someone who’s used to getting his own way, but he’s not half the bully as some Zayn has faced. And Zayn’s got nothing to lose here. “Do you have a boat?” he retorts, and holds the bright blue gaze.

“What if I do?”

“Then that’d be pretty sick.”

Louis throws back his head and laughs, delighted, almost childlike in his glee. “Oh, I like him.”

  
Zayn takes that as permission to sit down between him and Harry.

“Are we done hazing now?” Niall asks. He’s spent the intervening time eating what looks like half the cafeteria. “Or do we have to make him run ten laps of the school?”

“We—”

“Lou.”

“Fine, we’re done.” Louis pouts at Harry. He pouts well, and Zayn’s pretty sure he knows it. “Can I ask him where he’s from, or is that too much?”

“I dunno, I haven’t asked him yet.” Harry nods, though, and Louis grins at him before turning to Zayn.

“So where’re you from? What brings you to our lovely provincial town?”

“Not from anywhere, really,” Zayn shrugs. “My dad’s job means we move a lot. ‘s why we’re here.”

“A lot like once a month, or once a year? I don’t want our Niall to get invested, see, if you’re just going to leave us.” Louis explains, and pats Niall’s head. “He’s easily hurt.”

“I’m staying for a year,” Zayn answers, but Niall talks over him.

“Fuck off, Tommo,” he says, without a laugh. “You’re the one who cried when Li left for the summer.”

“Irrelevant.”

“Where is he, anyway?” Harry asks, as Zayn tries not to choke on his coke. Lee isn’t an uncommon name. What you cannot change, he repeats to himself. Brooding never helped anything.

“Sick. Honestly, who gets sick on the first day of school?” Louis shakes his head sadly. “Poor lad. Did you watch the match last night?”

Niall had, as it turned out, and Harry is at least interested enough to listen, so Zayn finishes his meal more or less in silence. It’s not a bad silence, though; Zayn likes the quiet. He gets to watch these boys, to learn them before he commits. He’s got to say, though, he likes what he sees. He doesn’t even sneak out for a smoke.

\---

It turns out Louis is in his chem class. Zayn doesn’t sit next to him, hovers near the back of this class, but when the teacher starts talking about a quick lab “to get the ball rolling!” (Zayn rolls his eyes), Louis grabs at his sleeve. Zayn’s not entirely sure why; Louis seemed less than enthusiastic at lunch. But he’s still unspeakably glad. He _hates_ being the odd one out when it comes to partners, almost as much as he hates partner exercises in the first place.

So, “Thanks,” he mutters as they’re herded towards the back half of the classroom, where lab stations are set up—some sort of burners, he thinks. Huh.

“For what?” Louis picks up the safety goggles lying next to the burner and wrinkles his nose at them. “These are absolutely going to fuck up my hair.”

“Losing an eye would also fuck up your look,” Zayn points out. Then, quieter, because this isn’t easy for him, “For partnering with me.”

“Harry’s adopted you, it’s my job to not let you be sad, because then Hazza’d be sad and no one likes that. No, seriously, it’s like you kicked a puppy. I think he does it on purpose; I’m so proud.”

Zayn doesn’t answer, just pulls out the worksheet to look at what they’re supposed to be doing. Louis leans over his shoulder to look at it, too. He’s closer than Zayn would usually like, for someone he’s barely met, but there’s no way to move away subtly. And he doesn’t seem to be doing it on purpose, as a tease; maybe he’s just the sort of person who doesn’t understand personal space. Zayn gets that.

“Huh. I don’t suppose you’re secretly a science nerd underneath all the ink?”

“No.” Zayn thinks he understands all the individual words. “You?”

“Not at all. Drama geek, footie star. So, do nothing and hope Mr. Croft accepts our winning smiles as a pass?” Louis steps back when Zayn puts the paper back on the counter, so Zayn can look him in the face. “I bet you’ve got a good charming smile beneath the bad boy clichés. You’ve got the bone structure for it.”

“Or,” Zayn suggests, a little hesitantly, because he doesn’t really know Louis yet, but he thinks—he thinks he wants to. “We could just add things at random until it explodes or summat.”

Louis’s eyes literally light up. Zayn almost wants to paint him, in that moment of inspiration. “That,” he says, and snaps on his safety goggles, “is a wonderful idea.”

They miss getting detention through a combination of Louis’s charm, Zayn’s wide-eyed insistence that he’s new and innocent, and the fact that no one can actually prove they did it on purpose. Still, they’re giggling as they walk out of the principal’s office, bits of burnt paper still stuck in their hair.

“That was brilliant!” Louis announces, and slings an arm over Zayn’s shoulder. “Haz can do what he wants, I’m keeping you.”

“Glad I’ve been upgraded to a pet.”

“Yes, Zayn. Come!”

Zayn shoves at him with his hip, and Louis shoves back, still giggling. Maybe, Zayn concedes, this might not be the worst new school.

\---

“You’re coming to lunch with us, right?” Harry asks midway through English, poking Zayn with a pencil until he looks over.

“If you guys want me.” He’s not going to presume.

“Don’t worry, we do,” and Harry winks at him. Zayn rolls his eyes, but he chuckles too. From what he’s seen, it seems like Harry does that to people.

So he waits for Harry to pack up his stuff after class—somehow it takes him longer than anyone else despite how he just throws everything into his bag—and walks with him to the cafeteria, Harry’s arm slung easily around his waist. There are looks, of course, but he can’t tell their source—if they’re ‘oh, new kid’ looks or ‘Paki’ looks, or ‘leather jacket and tattoos looks’ or ‘two boys looking awfully close’ looks. He doesn’t care. Not this year. And Harry must be at least somewhat out, given his aggressive flirting, so that part of it can’t be that bad around here. Though he wonders how much of that is the charm Harry seems to ooze.

“So you should come to mine on Friday,” Harry says into Zayn’s ear. There’s something hypnotic about the depth and leisurely pace of his voice that just sucks Zayn in. It’s so different from the light, easy—no. No regrets. Accept it.

“Should I?” Zayn counters, “Maybe I’m not that sort of boy, Mr. Styles.”

“I could make you that kind of boy.”

“Cocky, aren’t we?”

“Truthful, is all.” Harry dimples, but his eyes are glinting with mischief. “But it’s a thing, actually—the four of us are getting together to drink and play video games and shit. You should come.”

“I’ve known you two days.”

“By then it’ll have been five. And Louis says that anyone who blows shit up with him is his best friend already.” Zayn can’t help his smirk. He has a feeling he and Louis are going to have a long talk and then world—or at least, school—domination. “C’mon.” He waggles his eyebrows, green eyes dancing. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

“If you put it that way…”

“Great! We usually go right after Li and Lou’s practices—me and Niall just hang out, you can come with us, unless you’ve got something better to do, you don’t play a sport, do you? You don’t look like you do, but I try not to assume. You don’t have a car, do you?”

Zayn parses the sentence, then shakes his head. Harry shrugs, and goes on, “There’s still enough room. And you’re small enough to squeeze in, anyway.”

“Oi!” Zayn bumps his shoulder into Harry’s. Admittedly, more into Harry’s upper arm than his shoulder. Harry grins, and doesn’t take it back.

They’re just outside the cafeteria when Harry moves his arm off of Zayn, grabs his shoulder to stop him instead. “ Look,” he says, and runs his hand over his hair. “I know we’ve got this—thing—going on, and I’m coming on pretty strong because that’s what I do, yeah? But even if you aren’t, like, on board—the lads and I still think you’re pretty ace, and you need some friends, right? So if you don’t want—this—I’ll back off and we can all be friends. No harm no foul.”

Zayn can feel himself blush, even if it probably won’t show, and looks down at his shoes. He’s not good at this. He can do the flirting, the sly looks and snappy comebacks, but this, putting yourself out there, being honest to a fault—he’s not good at it. But he wants to change that, after this summer. And he likes Harry, he does, thinks he’s a good remedy for broad shoulders and soft eyes.

“No, it’s—it’s not too strong.” He rubs the back of his neck, then looks up to see Harry grinning at him like he’s a basket of kittens.

“Brilliant,” he says, and sounds like he means it. “Now, food. And you still need to meet Liam, don’t you? Don’t worry, he’s awesome…”

The name hits Zayn like a battering ram, enough that he stops listening to the rest of Harry’s ramblings, but he swallows it down. It’s just a name, and some lingering feelings from the summer. No regrets for what he cannot change, after all, so he follows Harry through the lunch line again, then to the same table as yesterday.

There are three people at the table this time—Louis, without suspenders but with a beanie, Niall, in another tank top, and—Zayn almost stumbles. He knows those shoulders. Hell, he knows that t-shirt, had worn it a few times, knows that even though it looks black there’s a Batman logo on the front and a hole over the right hip, big enough for Zayn to fit his thumb through. Knows that it smelt like fresh air and boy this summer, and, sometimes, like Liam.

“Hey, lads!” Harry says, as he puts his tray down in what seems to be his customary place. Zayn follows, as if on autopilot. He can’t—this can’t be happening. He doesn’t actually live in a movie. This shit doesn’t happen. He was moving on. Putting down new roots. Learning and going forward. “I brought a Zayn with me again!”

Liam had been looking at something on Louis’s phone, hadn’t looked up at Harry’s arrival. But he nearly drops the phone when Harry says Zayn’s name, and Zayn is selfishly glad of it. Glad of the shock on Liam’s face, the way his mouth, those ridiculous full, pink lips, are slack with it, his eyes wide.

“Zayn?” he breathes.

No one else apparently realizes what Liam’s tone means, because Louis just rests his chin on Liam’s shoulder. “This is Zayn. He’s Harry’s new pet, and my new partner in crime. Zayn, this is Liam. He’s my better half.”

“Boyfriend, you mean?” Zayn asks, his voice remarkably steady, he thinks. That would—he’s not sure what it would do to him, but he thinks he would punch Liam. And then possibly leave and never come back.

“No, no. Though if either of us were into guys, we’d totally be married.”

“Hey!”

“Haz, we share a soul. Marrying you would be like marrying myself.”

“And me?” Niall asks.

  
Zayn can barely hear them, can hardly breathe. Liam is looking at him with big, apologetic puppy-dog eyes, the eyes that Zayn would have moved heaven and earth to satisfy a few months ago, but he heard Louis. Heard Louis, and remembers Liam’s hands exploring his body, his tongue outlining Zayn’s tattoos, Liam slamming him against the wall of the cabin and grinding his hips into Zayn’s thigh. Remembers Liam’s face, flushed and wrecked, as Zayn looked down at him through the haze of pleasure and thought he needed to be painted like this, if only Zayn had the skill. And then—not into guys.

“I need a smoke,” Zayn announces, suddenly, and shoves his chair back from the table so it screeches against the floor. Liam jumps, flinches.

“You smoke, too? Is there a part of you that isn’t cliché?” Louis asks. Harry’s fixed concerned eyes on him, and Niall’s got a steady, slightly questioning look. Liam’s just looking down at his tray.

“Still saving up for my motorcycle,” Zayn retorts, then stalks out of the cafeteria. He doesn’t stop, barely looks around until he gets outside, until he can lean against the bike rack a few feet away from the entrance and pull out a cigarette. He fumbles to light it, then puts it to his lips and lets the long, hot feel of the smoke run through him.

He hadn’t expected it to be more than a summer thing. More than a fling with the well fit boy next door with the kind eyes and body Zayn wanted to—and did—climb. Maybe more feelings got involved, maybe there had been as many nights lying under the trees talking about anything that came to mind as there were nights where they slipped out to meet under the docks, when Liam pressed him into the towel and held him there with burning eyes and gentle hands. Maybe Zayn had fallen too hard and too fast. But they had left, and Zayn hadn’t been surprised when Liam didn’t return any of his calls or texts. It had been romantic, almost: that perfect, isolated summer. He could appreciate that, or he tried to. He guesses Liam had a different reason.

But this is just another thing he can’t change, Zayn knows. Another stupid side effect of a new school. Maybe the worst yet, but Zayn deals. It’s what he does. And he can do this too.

“You forgot your bag.”

Zayn manages not to jump at the sound of Liam’s voice. Instead, he spins easily, cigarette still draped between two fingers. Liam is holding his bag in one hand, but he looks—scared, almost. His shoulders drawn in. He’s making himself look small.

“Thanks.” Zayn takes the bag. Liam doesn’t move, just shifts his weight between his feet, nervous.

He doesn’t want this. He doesn’t really want Liam to hurt, not even if he is. So even though he could draw out the misery, could make Liam sweat and stare and wonder like Zayn did at that silent phone, Zayn takes the last drag of his cigarette and stubs it out. “I’m not going to be a dick.”

“What?”

“I’m not going to out you or anything.” Zayn clarifies. “You don’t have to worry about it.”

“I wasn’t!” Zayn raises an eyebrow. Liam gives him an open, honest look back. Of course he would look that sincere. “Zayn, no, I know you, you wouldn’t do that. That’s not why I came out here. I just thought—we should talk?”

He reaches out, his hand closing around Zayn’s wrist like a ring of fire, burning Liam’s callouses into his skin. He’s got that look on, that earnest, determined look he had when he first kissed Zayn, on the boardwalk because he’s cheesy like that, had moved their ice cream out of the way and pressed their lips together so their first kiss tasted of mint and chocolate and cherry.

Zayn yanks his hand away. There are things he can change, and things he won’t do. “I’m not going to be your dirty little secret,” he says flatly. It hurts, the look on Liam’s face, the startled hurt, but he has to do this. Liam could have called. Could have done something. Could have said something. Zayn’s not going to throw himself into the pit of fiery lava when he can stay teetering on the edge. It’s what Zayn does, draws lines. “I won’t out you, but I’m not hiding with you.”

“Zayn—” It’s pleading and hurt and Zayn can read the want in it, but—

“You’re the one who cut me off, babe. Who was pretending this never happened. Are you going to tell those boys about us?” Liam doesn’t need to speak. His face says it all. “Then you got your wish. It didn’t happen.”

He purposefully walks around Liam to go inside. Liam doesn’t follow him.

Fine, Zayn thinks, as he throws himself into his seat in art class, fine. Never happened. He can do that.

\---

What surprises Zayn, though, is that he can. It’s easy to fall into the boys, to hang out with Niall before class as Zayn has his morning cigarette and Niall has his early-mid-morning snack (Zayn made an elevenses joke, once, and only Liam had laughed), to blow things up in Chem with Louis then help him run lines in the break, to flirt with Harry and feel the heat of anticipation in every look. He avoids Liam, more or less, as much as he can; when he can’t, it’s too easy to be his friend. He likes Liam, is the whole problem. Likes the way he always looks out for everyone, likes how he waxes enthusiastic over comics, likes how he tries to be responsible but is incredibly easy to coax into pranks. He’s always liked that about Liam as much as the six pack and lips.

So, friends. And whenever Zayn catches himself thinking about Liam like that, remembering, he forces himself to think about Harry instead. Harry, with his dimpling smile that never fails to make Zayn grin back and long fingers and lovely hair, Harry who wants Zayn and isn’t afraid to acknowledge it.

On Friday, Zayn finds himself running to meet the boys at Liam’s car.

“Sorry,” he pants as he gets there, collapsing against the closest person, who happens to be Niall. He is not made for exercise. “Got caught up?”

“In what?” Louis asks. He’s still in his football kit, and it’s disconcerting to see him more footballer than drama geek.

“Work for a class.” He doesn’t know why he hasn’t told them about his art yet. It’s not something he’s ashamed of. But he’s falling into this group so quickly, so easily, that he thinks he might want to keep something for himself. A safety net, in case this all breaks as quickly as it formed.

“Such a workaholic,” Harry tsks, “Turning into Liam?”

“Perish the thought,” Zayn retorts.

“Hey!” He can’t not look at Liam, then. Liam fresh from rugby practice, still glowing with sweat, his face bright from exertion and adrenaline. Zayn had always loved him like that, coming in from a run or a pick-up match, when he could lick him and see Liam’s half disgusted, half aroused face, his muscles—

“So are we going?” Zayn asks. He scowls at the car, and is careful to lean on Harry when they get in, Louis in the front because, as Niall puts it, no one wants your sweat on them, Tommo.

He stares out the window as Harry and Louis bicker amiably, doesn’t look at the driver’s seat where he had almost given Liam a blowjob before Liam got too squeamish about fluids in his car.

Harry’s house is a modest two-story A-line, but his basement is everything a teenaged boy could want in a man cave—big, over-stuffed couches, huge tv screen, even a pool table. Zayn hovers as the boys go through what is clearly a ritual of long habit: Liam and Louis disappear upstairs to shower and change, Harry goes to the minibar and pulls out a coke and four beers, Niall puts a disc in the xbox.

But it’s only awkward for about thirty seconds, and then the video game starts up and Niall kicks Zayn’s ass at FIFA, but Zayn gets his own back with Mario Kart. Then Louis and Liam come back down and it’s Super Smash Brothers and Call of Duty, and after losing too many times Harry insists on Rock Band, which they’re surprisingly good at, Niall and Louis on guitar and Zayn on bass and Liam on drums, with Harry crooning into the microphone.

Zayn’s lost track of time, but he thinks it’s late. He’s lounging on one couch, Harry’s head on his thigh, and he’s petting Harry more than anything else. Niall’s sprawled on the floor, and on the other couch Louis’s got his legs thrown into Liam’s lap.

“So, what ended up happening with your summer girl, Li?” Louis asks lazily, around another sip of beer.

  
Zayn’s hand freezes. Then, at a whining sound from Harry, he forces his muscles to relax, starts petting again. Harry makes a pleased purr.

“Nothing,” Liam snaps.

“Payner here had himself a summer love,” Louis explains to Zayn, ignoring Liam. “True Grease style, though I told him that wasn’t allowed, that I’m Danny Zuko. But still, had a blast, didn’t you Li?” He nudges Liam with his toe.

“Yeah, did,” Liam agrees, softly. Zayn looks down at Harry’s hair, the way it looks almost black against his skin. Liam’s hair was lighter, streaked with sun. “Best time of my life.”

“Such a romantic, our Liam.”

“Cheeseball,” Niall corrects.

“’s sweet,” Harry adds, “Isn’t it?” he asks Zayn, his smile sleepy-soft. Zayn smiles down at him.

“Yeah, adorable.” But then, because Zayn’s not really a good person, “So what happened to her, Liam? Why’d it end?”

Liam winces. Zayn tries to pretend he’s not happy about that. But he wants to hear the excuse, see how Liam spins it. “Just—didn’t work out, I guess,” he mutters, red high on his cheeks. He’s looking anywhere but the other couch. “It’s over, anyway.”

“No chance of anything restarting?” God, he hates himself. But he has to check. Has to, because Harry is in his lap and one of his hands is curled around Zayn’s ankle and he still needs to remind himself not to look at Liam.

Liam sounds endlessly, infinitely sad. “No, I don’t think so.”

“FIFA time!” Niall announces, into the silence that falls, and Louis rolls off the couch with a whoop and an oath as he hits the floor.

Harry pushes himself up so he can whisper throatily into Zayn’s ear so Zayn shivers. “Want to get out of here?”

“It’s your house.” But he wants to. Wants to learn how to forget.

Harry’s smile is pure mischief. “Which means I have a bedroom.”

“Why, so it does.” Zayn lets his fingers run down Harry’s side to his hip, then lets it run over the slice of skin between his jeans and his shirt.

Harry sits up. “Giving Zayn a tour of the house!” he yelps, and grabs Zayn’s hand to pull him up.

“You don’t need to use euphemisms, we know you’re off to have your wicked way with the new kid,” Niall says without looking away from the screen.

“Fine then. I’m going to show Zayn my bedroom and the inside of my mouth. Don’t interrupt.” He nearly drags Zayn out of the room, but Zayn manages one look back, one to catch Liam’s eye. Liam looks away, back to the boys playing video games, and Zayn lets himself be tugged away.

Harry’s bedroom is on the second floor, a mess of band posters and CDs and clothes thrown on the floor and some vintage movie posters. Zayn kind of expects Harry just to shove him against the door and maul him, given the speed he got Zayn up here, but Harry hesitates once he closed the door, looking a little sheepish.

“That was okay, right?” he asks. “I mean, I kind of outed you, and that we…”

“I wasn’t planning on it being a secret.” But Zayn has to smile, at this boy who’s trying so hard to make him comfortable. Who’s communicating like all the books say. And so, because he owes it to Harry, “But, Harry—full disclosure, I guess—I’m just out of a—well, it wasn’t long, but it was intense, and I thought I was over it, but—I’m not sure if I can handle anything serious, you know?”

“So,” Harry’s voice is even slower than usual, honey thick, “You want to be friends and fool around sometimes but not have, like, emotions come into it.”

Zayn flinches. It sounds so crude put like that. “Yeah, but, I mean, it’s not that I don’t like you, I just think you’re too cool to be a rebound, and—”

“Zayn Malik, I do believe you’re my perfect man,” Harry laughs, and grabs Zayn’s shirt to draw him in.

Liam had kissed like he meant to conquer, to win, like he would die if he couldn’t have all of Zayn. There had been sweetness there too, always, and a bit of awe, but always desperation. Harry kisses like it’s a game, with laughter still on his breath, and Zayn lets himself fall into it, to play with him, to laugh as he shoves Harry backwards into the bed so he can crawl on top of him, giggling as Harry licks at Zayn’s throat, pulls the collar of his shirt aside to see more of the tattoos there.

They’ve managed to get their shirts off along with the making out when someone pounds on the door. “Are you all clothed?” Niall yells.

“No!” Zayn shouts back. His dick is achingly hard in his jeans, pressed against Harry’s thigh.

Niall apparently doesn’t actually care, because he pushes the door open anyway. “It’s okay, Harry never wears clothes,” he explains, and doesn’t bother to hide his interest in the ink on Zayn’s chest. “Sick ink, man.”

“Thanks.” He rolls off of Harry to sit on the bed, takes a few long, slow breaths to calm himself down.

Harry lifts himself up on both elbows to glare at Niall. It’s kind of adorable, more grumpy kitten than actual anger. “Did you want something?” he whines.

“Yeah, Liam wants to leave, so if Zayn’s going home tonight he’s got to go.”

“I’m going.” Zayn grabs his shirt and pulls it on as he stands up. Harry doesn’t bother with the shirt, just follows after him in just his jeans.

Louis wolf-whistles when he sees them, but Liam’s face is a little sad. Good, Zayn thinks, he should be. At least he can regret he’s finished with this. Even if he knows he’s not being fair, that it’s not Liam’s fault Zayn brought more into it than he should. Liam should have stopped being so perfect if he didn’t want Zayn to love him.

“Enjoy your initiation?” Louis asks, all wicked grin

Zayn matches his grin. “Very much, yeah. This how you greet all new recruits?”

“Not how I got in.”

“You were twelve, Niall,” Liam points out. “Are we going?”

“Yeah, let me just grab my—thanks.” He takes the jacket he left downstairs from Liam and pulls it on. “See you, Harry.”

Harry tilts his head at him, then grabs him to plant a smacking kiss on his lips. “I like the jacket,” he explains with a shrug when he lets Zayn go, smirking a little as Zayn blinks, surprised and breathless. Then, when Niall groans, he adds, softer, “I like you.”

That surprises a smile out of Zayn. “Like you too, babe,” he replies. Behind him, Liam stiffens. Shit. He hadn’t meant to say that, hadn’t meant to be cruel like that, to use the pet name Liam had claimed for his own. He had known how much Liam loved it, the little endearment. But—it was instinct, because before it was Liam’s it was anyone he was messing around with. Not that Liam would know that.

“Okay, lets go before they start making out again,” Louis declares, and starts towards the car. Liam’s close on his heels, like he can’t wait to get out of there. Niall puts his arm over Zayn’s shoulder, “to make sure he goes,” and draws him away.

By some awful stroke of bad luck that Zayn is sure is karma for the ‘babe’ thing, Zayn’s the last one to be dropped off. The ten minutes between Niall getting out of the car and Zayn’s house are a study in excruciating awkwardness. Zayn stares out the window; Liam doesn’t look away from the road. He tries not to think about he last time they had been in this car together, laughter and silly arguments and their fingers curled together over the dash.

“Thanks for the ride,” Zayn mutters as he opens his door. He doesn’t really expect Liam to answer, after that hell of ten minutes, but—

“Zayn.”

“Yeah?” He looks back, he can’t help it. Liam’s looking at him with those sad puppy-dog eyes, and in the moonlight he could be a statue carved of marble.

“You—Harry’s a good guy.” Liam swallows. Zayn can’t help but follow the motion of his adam’s apple, the strong lines of his throat. “I’m glad you’re happy.”

It hurts more than anything else he could have said. “I’m glad one of us is,” Zayn snaps back, and slams his door.

\---

The first bullying incident isn’t for a full three weeks after school starts. Zayn’s pretty impressed, actually—he’s not sure if it’s because this is a decent place, or there haven’t been as many terrorist attacks in the news, or the boys being constantly around him, or if people have realized that they’re fucking eighteen and bullying is for immature pricks, but whatever it is, three weeks is a new record.

Still, he’s not surprised when he’s on the way to lunch after math class and hears someone yell, “Hey, Paki!” He just ignores it. The slurs lost some of their bite after years of repetition.

“Hey, I’m talking to you!” There’s a meaty hand on his shoulder, and Zayn lets out a long sigh before turning around to face his attacker. He’s just the usual meathead, probably egged on by the gang of boys arranged around him.

“If you’re talking to me, you could call me by name,” Zayn suggests evenly, “It’s Zayn.”

“What kind of name is that?”

“Mine. Now, I’m trying to get to lunch.”

“Think you’re too good to talk to me, filthy paki?” the meathead leans in close, so Zayn can smell the onion on his breath and count the pimples on his broad forehead. “You’re not wanted here. Why don’t you go back to your uncle Bin Laden?”

Zayn doesn’t roll his eyes, because that always just antagonizes them, but it’s a close call. “Brilliant suggestion. I’ll just go do that now, yeah?”

“Good!” The meathead lets go of him with a shove. Zayn stumbles into someone, and then he does move quickly, pivoting so the locker’s at his back. It’s when he’s surrounded that it gets dangerous.

But it’s just Niall, looking between Zayn and the meathead with lowered brows. “Everything okay?”

“Just fine, Horan,” the meathead snarls, “Take your fucking terrorist scum friend and go.” He storms away, his goons falling into place behind him.

That actually went better than it could have, Zayn decides, and straightens his jacket, brushing off the place the meathead had grabbed him. “Hey, Niall. Going to lunch?”

“Yeah, but—are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” He starts walking towards the cafeteria. Niall stays still for a few seconds, then jogs to keep up. “How’s your day been?”

“Great, we dissected frogs, it was gross.”

“Gross or great?”

“Both,” Niall laughs, but it’s not quite as sunny as usual. He keeps giving Zayn these sidelong looks, which is weird, because even in their short acquaintance Zayn’s figured out that not much worries Niall.

He keeps giving Zayn those looks as he piles an astounding amount of food onto his tray—Zayn doesn’t get it, because he’s never seen the boy do a lick of exercise and he’s still ridiculously fit—and as they walk to the table. But once they get to the table, the food distracts him, and Zayn breathes a sigh of relief. Blowing it out of proportion only makes it worse. Accept it, and all.

Louis’s not there yet, but Zayn slides in between his empty seat and Harry, ruffling Harry’s curls as he does. “Hey, Haz,” he says, and Harry grins at him. “Liam.” Liam nods. It’s getting better, Zayn thinks. Or as good as it can be. They’re still holding themselves separate, but that’s self-preservation on Zayn’s part. And Liam’s too, probably, if in a different way. But it’s still easy enough to get pulled into the debate Harry and Liam are having about the Beatles versus the Stones.

Ten minutes later, Louis slams his tray down. “Sorry I’m late, lads,” he says, as if they had waited for him. Sometimes Zayn thinks Louis’s under the impression the entire world is waiting for him. “History got caught up in an argument about that terrorist attack last night.”

“That explains it,” Zayn mutters.

Louis’s still talking. “And of course fucking Monroe didn’t bother to check the clock, so no one cut him off, and—”

“Explains what?” Liam asks, eyes focused on Zayn.

  
Zayn shrugs. “Nothing.”

“Anderson and his crew were on Zayn just now,” Niall volunteers. Zayn shoots him a glare, because that really didn’t need to be mentioned. Niall just shrugs back at him. “Calling him a paki and stuff.”

“God, Zayn, are you okay?” Liam’s giving Zayn a look like he can x-ray him with his eyes. Harry throws an arm around his waist and pulls him in, nuzzling at his shoulder in a way that’s all comfort and no sexuality.

“Want us to send Liam to beat them up?” Louis demands, “It won’t be the first time.”

“It’s fine,” Zayn insists. He looks away from Liam and extricates himself from Harry. “Honestly, it’s no big deal.”

“No big deal? He was threatening you!”

“Yeah, but it was pretty harmless, as things go.”

“He grabbed you,” Niall points out. Zayn glares at him again, because Louis’s already looking like he’s plotting something, and they weren’t kidding about Harry’s sad face. And Liam looks like—Zayn can’t even face the pain in his expression.

“That’s it, I’m going to—”

Zayn grabs Louis before he can do something stupid. “I’m fine. He just got in my face a little. It’s no big deal, I said.”

“Why not?” Harry asks. He looks incredibly young, eyes wide and questioning. “He could have hurt you.”

“But he didn’t. And acknowledging this stuff just makes it worse. Trust me, I’ve had enough experience, I can handle it.”

“Experience?” Liam sounds like he’s swallowed a bug.

Zayn raises a condescending eyebrow at him. “I’m a gay artsy geeky Muslim new kid with tattoos. There is nothing about me that’s not a target on my back.” He shrugs. It feels like he’s been doing it a lot. “No point dwelling on what you can’t change, right?”

“Why didn’t you tell—us?” Liam asks, low and anguished.

Zayn doesn’t know. Doesn’t know why he didn’t mention it on those nights under the stars. Maybe because he didn’t like to think about it. Maybe because he didn’t want Liam to know the ugly parts of him, the parts that were bloody and beaten and little. But probably, and Zayn can admit this, with his new honesty policy—he just couldn’t quite lay himself bare like that. Couldn’t bring something so real into the heavy, lazy heat of the summer.

“Never really mattered,” he answers, “’s just a fact of life.”

“It’s not…” Harry’s very quiet, a little ashamed. “We aren’t making it worse, are we? Our thing? I can be less obvious…”

Zayn lifts his chin, turns so that he’s facing Harry. He doesn’t look at Liam, because he can’t bear to look, and because he’s really not trying to be mean or pointed. Liam can do what he wants. But Zayn drew a line in the sand a long time ago, and it matters. “I’m not hiding, Haz. This is who I am. They can deal with it.”

There’s silence for a second. It was a bit over the top, Zayn guesses, and starts to gnaw on his lower lip.

But then Louis speaks, and he sounds almost breathless. “Fuck, even I’m a little turned on right now,” he says, “Good on you, mate.”

Harry presses a sloppy kiss to his cheek. Niall grins and nods. But when Zayn chances a glance at Liam, he can’t look for long. Because that look is somewhere between pain and like Zayn is the sun and stars, and he—he just can’t face that look when there’s nothing behind it but some admiration at a little bit of bravery that’s been forced on him more than anything.

“See,” Louis explains later in chem, as they pretend to pay attention to the worksheet. There aren’t any explosive chemicals this time, just a ph test, so there’s not much they can do. The teacher’s still watching them pretty closely, though. “Liam was bullied a lot when we were kids.”

“Liam?” With the muscles and the sports and the—everything?

“Doesn’t look like it now, right? But he was a dweeby sort of kid, shy, and he’s more than a little bit a geek, if you haven’t noticed.” Louis adds two drops of milk to the test tube, swirls it around. He looks like a very well-dressed mad scientist. “It fucked him up right well. Major self-confidence issues. Then he got into boxing and rugby and—well, you see. But we’re all a little sensitive when it comes to shit like that.”

“Makes sense. Add four drops of the red shit.” Zayn surveys the worksheet. “Or, no the green. I would have failed potions. It’s probably a good thing I’m not a wizard.”

“You’re a bit of a geek too, aren’t you? But you’d make a very pretty little Ravenclaw,” Louis pats his head. Zayn scowls at him. Little, his ass. “And I could be your kick-ass Slytherin friend.”

“Now who’s the geek?”

“You’re the one who brought it up.”

“I didn’t start sorting people.”

“Like you’ve never thought about it.”

“You are such a Slytherin, aren’t you?”

“And proud of it. Anyway, point is, we’ve seen what bullying can do, and we’re here for you and shit. And I wasn’t kidding about beating him up.”

Zayn can feel himself blushing, feel the warmth flooding through him at the offhand comment. “Thanks, Tommo.”

Louis just tosses his hair back and narrows his eyes at the test tube, which is not turning any sort of color. “You’re one of us, mate. It’s what we do.”

\---

In October, the leaves start to fall. They make a pretty pattern in Niall’s backyard, swirling lines of red and yellow against the fading green of the grass, catching in the dark mess of Harry’s curls to match his cheeks, rising in clouds around Louis’s legs as he kicks the ball around, finding their way into the pockets of Niall’s jackets after a spectacular (and failed) dive. And of course fall is a good season for Liam, as good as summer was with its heat and shirtlessness and the careless warmth. Fall is flannel shirts hanging off broad shoulders solid enough to climb and a chill that makes his eyes sparkle, jeans tight enough to make his ass a work of art.

Zayn leans back against a tree with his sketchpad, watching the other lads in their footie game. They’d asked him to play—apparently even teams don’t matter because Harry counts as a negative player anyway—but he’d rather be on his own, trying to catch them, the air, the light, to put it onto paper where it’ll last forever. He’s just happy that they offered, that sometimes when Harry slips and falls he’ll give Zayn a dimpling bow; that Louis winks at him and holds up a finger to his lips before he body checks Niall into a pile of leaves; that he’s occasionally called for a ruling.

“Zayner, can’t you distract Haz?” Louis jolts him out of his thoughts with a yell. “I think I’d do better on my own.”

“I’m not that bad!”

“You really are, Haz,” Liam says, apologetically, and dodges Harry’s attempt at a tackle. Harry stumbles, manages to keep his feet, and juts out his lip in a pout.

“Fine, I’ll go where I’m wanted.” He drops down next to Zayn, rests his head on Zayn’s thigh, and looks up with his most charming, plaintive look. They’re all touchy, these boys; Zayn sort of loves it, the easy familiarity they’ve extended to him without thinking. It explains a lot about how tactile Liam was all the time, really. “You still want me, right, Zayn?”

“I always want you,” Zayn teases, then leans down to kiss him on the forehead.

“Hey!” a handful of leaves falls into Zayn’s quiff. “No PDA.”

“Jealous, Lou?” Zayn grins.

“In your dreams, Malik.” Louis throws another handful of leaves to punctuate it.

Gently, Zayn lifts Harry’s head off of him and puts it on his sketchpad. Then, before Louis has a chance to expect it, he pounces, shoving leaves of his own in Louis’s hair and shirt. Louis shrieks a battle cry and throws him off.

“Liam!” he cries, running to hide behind him as Zayn darts forward, “The mean biker’s picking on me! You’ll save me, won’t you?”

“You did deserve it, Louis—” Louis yells again, because Niall took his chance at vengeance, shoving a handful of leaves down Louis’s pants. As Louis takes off after him, swearing revenge, Liam turns to watch—and Zayn, too caught up in the moment to be cautious, jumps and drops his pile of leaves over Liam’s head.

Liam sputters, but he’s grinning as Zayn retreats. “Oh, it is on, Malik.” And Zayn laughs and flees, because he’s not an idiot, but Liam’s bigger and faster than him so he’s caught up on seconds. He doesn’t have any leaves so he just lunges, grabbing Zayn around the waist to bring them down together, and they tumble to the ground, Liam twisting so Zayn’s landing is cushioned, then immediately rolling over so Zayn’s trapped.

Zayn’s breath catches—and not just because his head hits the ground. For an instant, there’s heat in Liam’s gaze as he looks down on him, a faint echo of months ago when Liam would have kept laughing, captured Zayn’s lips in a kiss and pinned him to the ground until Zayn was squirming beneath him—then he rolls off, darting towards where Louis has Niall trapped behind a tree.

It takes Zayn a second to catch his breath. What you cannot change, he reminds himself, and looks over to where Harry is apparently asleep. Then he grabs a handful of leaves to join Louis’s assault on Niall and Liam.

Half an hour later, they all collapse around the tree where Harry’s only now sitting up.

“You cheated, is all I’m saying,” Louis tells Niall from his pillow on Harry’s shoulder.

“There were rules?”

“Since when do you care about rules?”

“My hair is always sacred,” Louis retorts, “Liam, what are you doing?”

Liam looks up from Zayn’s sketchbook, which he must have picked up when they all sat down. “Just looking through Zayn’s—” Then he cuts himself off, and turns to Zayn with a panicked gaze. “Thought I’d see what Zayn’s always at with this?” he amends. He’s always been a shit liar, Zayn thinks, or at least for everything but the important things, but the boys don’t seem to notice.

“You can’t just go looking through another man’s things,” Louis chides, and lurches over to Liam to look over his shoulder. “Hey, these are really good!”

“What are?” Harry asks.

“Zayn’s drawings. Zayn, since when did you draw?”

“Since always.” Harry scrambles over to crawl onto Liam so he can see, and Niall throws himself onto Louis’s back. Over Harry’s head, Liam gives him apologetic eyes; Zayn shrugs. It was only natural for Liam to look at his sketches. Liam had always loved to page through his sketchbook, had made admiring noises whenever Zayn would show him a new drawing, whether it was a doodle or a sketch he had spent days on, or would watch for ages as Zayn drew. They had spent hours like that on the beach, Zayn sketching, Liam watching him or sleeping, earbuds in, their bodies pressed against each other or their fingers intertwined.

Zayn’s just glad he’s got a new pad before school started. He’ll have to make sure the old one is hidden if Harry ever makes it to his bedroom. Though Harry wouldn’t snoop, he thinks; it’d only be a problem if Louis got up there, because he doesn’t doubt Louis would go through his room with a fine-tooth comb if he thought there was a secret there.

“Why didn’t you tell us you drew?” Louis asks, sure enough, like it’s a personal affront that he doesn’t know every fact about Zayn.

“Never came up.”

Niall cuffs Louis in the back of the head. “Man’s entitled to his secrets.”

“He needs them for his mysterious aura,” Harry agrees, “If he told me everything, then I would stop being attracted to him, and then where would he be?”

“Devastated, definitely,” Zayn drawls. Harry grins and blows him a kiss.

“Yeah, yeah, all that, but these are good. Do you do something with them, or—”

“Art class!” Niall exclaims. They all turn to stare at him, which involves Liam and Louis doing some interesting contortions. Niall blushes, but just tosses a shoulder. “I’ve been trying to figure out his schedule, I knew I was missing one.”

“You stalking me, Niall?”

“Something like that.” Niall grins.

“I’m…flattered.”  


“You should be.”

“Well, I am.”

“Glad of it.”

“Scintillating as this conversation is,” Louis interrupts, “Why are we not talking about the lack of nude Harrys in this? Has he not drawn you like one of his French girls yet, Haz? That’s neglect, that is. I think you need to seriously reconsider your relationship.”

“Fuck off.” Zayn shoves Louis and reclaims his sketchbook. Luckily Louis’s overdramatic tumble grabs all the attention, because Liam’s scarlet, and Zayn might be a little flushed too. There’s a sketch, in the pad under Zayn’s bed, of Liam in his board shorts, spread out like an odalisque on a bed with a seashell sheet. The edges of it are a little blurred, a little rough, because Zayn had gotten sick of looking and had had to touch, and Liam had been more than willing to pull him down onto the sea shells with a laugh and a growl, murmuring things about how hot he was when concentrating and did he know he looked at Liam differently when he drew and it was even more beautiful than usual which he hadn’t even thought possible.

“You could, you know,” Harry murmurs into Zayn’s ear. Zayn shivers, with the sudden chill of fall. He jerks his gaze down to his lap. “Sounds hot.”

“Watched Titanic too much?”

“Who didn’t?” Harry retorts, and Niall overhears to raise a hand, which Louis protests because, “I knew you then and you most certainly did, Niall,” and the day lapses back into comfortable chaos.

\---

The thing about Harry—the thing about being in Harry’s bed, metaphorically and literally—is that it’s fun. Zayn giggles as Harry digs his fingers into the ticklish spot between his ribs, reciprocates by nipping at the spot on his neck that makes his hips buck and his lips wrap around a lovely keening noise

“Wanna suck you off,” Harry stutters, and Zayn just nods frantically, because he would like to see the person who could resist Harry Styles with his lips pursed and pupils blown wide, asking to suck him off. Harry grins, licks at the wings on Zayn’s chest, then moves down, biting at each one of Zayn’s tattoos in turn, ending with the heart and the ‘don’t think I won’t’, then continuing to kiss his way downwards to in between his thighs, where he starts on the sensitive skin there.

“C’mon, Haz,” Zayn whines, because he’s never learned to be quiet in bed, but Harry just bats at the hand he’s reaching down towards him and hums. Zayn can’t see it, but he knows there’s a teasing glint in his eyes.

“Someone’s eager,” Harry muses, and strokes up Zayn’s already hard dick with a single finger.

“Yes, yes I am, now hurry the fuck up— _Fuck_ ,” Zayn finishes, as Harry takes as much of him as he can in his mouth, which is almost all. He doesn’t know who taught Harry to give blow jobs, but he wants to thank whoever it was.

He can feel Harry’s self-satisfied giggle in the vibrations of his throat, then in the lazy way he starts moving his hand, up and down at the base of Zayn’s cock in rhythm with his mouth. It’s slow and long and torturously good, Zayn’s hands tangling in Harry’s hair as his hips buck helplessly under the hand Harry keeps there. Harry’s tongue is doing unfair things to the head of his cock, swirling and tasting and other things Zayn doesn’t have names for other than _Harry fuck fuck Harry god damn it Harry come on_ , until, “Haz, I’m gonna—” and Harry pulls off even as his hand keeps moving, and the orgasm rips through Zayn like a tidal wave, not fast or unexpected but no less powerful for all that.

Harry keeps his hand moving, wringing out the last of the orgasm, and then very politely waits all of maybe a minute for Zayn to recover before he’s stabbing at Zayn’s side in a very pointed manner.

Zayn would really rather sleep for maybe a year—he likes the afterglow, the laziness and lack of pressure—but he also knows Harry won’t stop poking, and Harry did just give him a very nice blow job, so he rolls over so he’s straddling Harry’s hips. Harry goes very still, all at once, his dick hard and bobbing against his stomach.

He uses one hand next to Harry’s head to brace himself as he wraps the other around Harry and starts to pull, fast and hot and punishing, as he leans down to bite at Harry’s neck because he’s found that Harry likes that, a little bit of pain with his pleasure, and sure enough the minute his teeth dig in Harry makes another keening sound and bucks his hips. Zayn sits back hard enough to anchor him down so it’s just his hand working over Harry and his teeth and tongue that make Harry come with a moan.

After, after they shove at each other until finally Zayn gets up to get a washcloth to clean themselves off with and then toss in the general direction of the laundry hamper, Zayn adjusts Harry’s head on his chest so he’s not breathing in curls, and smiles down at where the other boy is tracing the script of the tattoo on his collarbone. He really, really wishes he could fall in love with Harry. They have fun together, the sex is great, Harry is great. He does love Harry, in a way. He thinks maybe, if he didn’t know Liam, he would be in love with Harry. But this thing with Harry—he never really wants to shove Harry into a closet to have his way with him, never needs him like breathing. He doesn’t think he could. He thinks if he loved Harry it would never hurt quite so much, except that’s how he loves, so much it hurts. Or maybe it would hurt more, because he loves until he can’t love anymore and Harry takes in love like that, needs it like that. And even now he can feel their edges rubbing against each other, the places Harry pushes when Zayn can’t be pushed, the places Zayn can’t give what Harry needs. Maybe they could learn. But they won’t, he thinks. Not now.

“Haz,” he says softly, threading his fingers through Harry’s curls, “You’re okay with this, right?”

“Being used for my body? Yeah, I could get used to it.” Harry tilts his head so Zayn can see his cheeky grin, and yeah, he believes him. But still, the last thing he wants to do is hurt Harry.

“If you ever need to stop, just tell me, really. I don’t want—”

“Afraid you’re too irresistible, Malik?” Harry chuckles, and Zayn can feel it rumble over his chest. “’m not in love with you. I’m not going to be. Doesn’t mean we can’t have fun.”

“I feel like I should be insulted,” Zayn teases, pulling gently on Harry’s hair. Harry makes a satisfied noise and rests his chin on Zayn’s nonexistent pec.

“Nah, just—you’re fit, right? Obviously, you know that, you can’t not. But you’re too…intense, I think, for me.”

“’s the tattoos,” Zayn agrees, overly mournful, “They scare all the boys away.”

“The tattoos are hot as fuck, mate.” Harry pokes the heart to make his point. “It’s that—you hold yourself back, right? You’re all mysterious and shit, like you didn’t say about the art or the bullying or anything. I don’t mind, it’s whatever—” Harry cuts off the breath Zayn draws for an apology. He’s trying. “But then you go all in once that stops, right? Like, no holds barred. And that’s…a little scary, really. Too much for me.”

Zayn sighs, because somehow this ridiculous, floppy-haired boy has got him pegged. “’s too much for most people, it seems.”

“Summer guy?”

“Yeah.”

“Tell me about him?” Harry asks. He pulls back, shifts so he’s curled on his side, looking at Zayn. Zayn turns over too, so they’re facing each other, their feet tangled together at the foot of the bed.

“Weirdest pillow talk ever.”

Harry shrugs. It’s an odd action, from this angle. “I’ve never been in love, you know? I’d like to know what it’s like. I think I’d be good at it.”

“You’ll be brilliant,” Zayn agrees, because he would be, for all Zayn would ruin him. Then he pauses, closes his eyes against the gentleness of Harry’s smile, to think. He doesn’t know how much Liam has said, what he can say that won’t give it away. But generalities, he supposes. The big picture.

“We, like—we had neighboring cabins on this lake this summer. And we’re the same age, and he was really fit, and we liked a lot of the same things, so we got to hanging out a lot. He asked what I was drawing, ‘s how we met.” Zayn grins to think of it, because it’s a good memory, despite it all, “I was just sitting on the beach, right? Still in jeans and everything because fuck if I’m going in the water. Then all of a sudden there’s a massively ripped guy in board shorts looking all cute and shy and asking me what I was doing. It was adorable.” Harry makes an appreciative noise.

“And then, like, we were both into superheroes and music and a bunch of other similar shit, so we kept talking, and, I don’t know how it started really, I was in love with him before I realized, but I didn’t expect anything, thought he was straight, really. But I must have given hints, flirted, because I get flirty—”

“It’s true.”

“But anyway, we were on the boardwalk, and he just pulled me into a hidden sort of alley and kissed me and it was like…” he can’t describe it, that first kiss, like puzzle pieces fitting together, like being whole, like _need_ and _want_ and everything all together. “Like fireworks,” he says at last. It’s cliché and not it at all, but it’s the best he can do.

Harry reaches out to take his hand, squeezes it. “And it was good, really good. We talked and we made out under the stars and there was sex, and that was hot, but it was like, a connection, you know?” Zayn stops talking for a second. This is the part that hurts. The part that means he can’t look at Liam anymore, really. Or he can’t look away. “Then we left, and I, like, texted him and called a few times, and he never answered. So I took the hint.”

Harry’s eyebrows draw together. “That sucks.”

“It really does,” Zayn agrees. But, he has to be fair, “And, I mean, part of it was my fault, I think. Like you said, I’m not good at the whole—talking, thing? About my feelings, or shit. So maybe I didn’t say something about it that he wanted to hear, or maybe I was just too much. And that’s not his fault.” It isn’t. Zayn doesn’t blame Liam, not for starting it, not for being so wonderful Zayn had no choice but to fall for him, not for backing off when Zayn came on too strong and not strong enough all at once. There are things Zayn does blame him for, for not giving him the courtesy of a real break up, for not giving him an explanation, for using him without knowing it. But not that. That’s on Zayn, or the world.

“’s not your fault either,” Harry says, as fiercely as he can, like he’s read Zayn’s mind. “It was a shitty thing to do.”

“It was.” Zayn nods, so the pillow scrapes across his cheek. “But—he’s like, such a _good_ person normally, like, cares for everyone, and wants to make things better. Wants to make me better. He made me want to be better.”

“You’re still in love with him.” It’s not a question.

Zayn rolls onto his back, feels Harry’s hand like an anchor around his, and tries not to remember the warmth of Liam’s fingers intertwined with his, the heat of Liam’s eyes as he raised their knuckles to his lips. What he cannot change, Zayn repeats to himself for the thousandth time. It is what it is. “I really wish I wasn’t.”

\---

“Oh, come on—fuck _off_ Tommo, no—down!” Zayn doesn’t bother to look up from his book at Niall’s swearing. He looks innocent, but put the lad in front of an xbox and he becomes a sailor. Especially when it’s him and Louis playing, Zayn’s found, because they have some sort of rivalry Zayn suspects is almost a decade long. And Louis swears right back at him, so Zayn really couldn’t care less. It’s a nice backdrop to his book.

“Hey.” The weight of the couch shifts as someone sits down next to him. Zayn doesn’t have to look away from the text to know it’s Liam, could tell by smell and voice and the feel of how he moves, but he takes a moment to steel himself behind his book anyway.

“Hey.”

“Whatcha reading?” Zayn peeks over the cover if his book, and instantly knows it was a mistake. Liam’s got his puppy-dog eyes on, and an earnest smile. What you cannot change, he tells himself, a little frantically. Friendship is better than nothing. It’s a lot easier to remember when Liam is keeping his distance.

“The Great Gatsby,” he replies. A tale of when true love just isn’t enough, when society’s pressures win out. Also, Leo.

“And it’s not for class, is it?” Liam teases.

Zayn shakes his head. “No. But I’ve got a copy of _No Man’s Land_ in my bag for later.”

Liam lights up at that, as Zayn knew he would. “Can I?”

“Yeah, go ahead.” Liam leafs through his bad to pull out the well-worn pages of the comic book. He looks so happy about it, Zayn has to smile.

“I really don’t think Nolan did justice to it,” Zayn says, as Liam opens the front page almost reverently. Anything to stop that heart-stopping smile.

“He had a lot of other storylines going on,” Liam points out, “It only got like ten minutes.”

“And they could have cut twenty of Christian Bale being moody around the Batcave.”

“I liked him brooding. Half the appeal of Batman, isn’t it, him being attractive and brooding?” Zayn’s eyes narrow. That was almost flirtatious, given Zayn’s reputation for being attractive and brooding.

But only almost, Zayn reminds himself. “Didn’t know you care about—” he cuts himself off. He’s not going to be that guy. Nothing he can change. He knew Liam liked how he looked, anyway. “I prefer him in a muscle suit beating people up.”

“Oh, the other two hours of the movie?”

Zayn laughs and shoves at Liam’s ankles. “Just read your—my—comic.”

“Says the man with no comeback.” But Liam tucks his toes under Zayn’s thighs and does, so Zayn dives back into the decadence and glory and emptiness of Gatsby’s life.

He doesn’t know how much later, Louis is standing over them, cooing, “Aw, bless. Look, Niall. They’re bonding!”

Zayn could almost laugh at that. Could almost cry at that. From Liam’s face, he thinks he feels the same.

“You mean reading,” Zayn retorts. “It’s this thing you do where you don’t talk for an extended period of time.”

“No, see, when Louis does it he has to read aloud to himself,” Liam adds, with a hint of a smirk.

“But just so he can hear the dulcet tones of his own voice.”  


“I don’t know what dulcet means, but no fair, you’re not allowed to gang up on me.” Louis plants himself on Liam’s legs, pokes at Zayn’s hips. “Betrayal. Traitors. Niall, you’re on my side, right?”

Niall glances over from the minifridge he’s grabbing another beer from. “Yeah, sure. Whatever you say.”

Louis pouts and crosses his arms over his chest. “Where’s Haz? He’s always on my side.”

“Talking to his mum,” Liam answers quickly. Then he pauses, and adds, “And isn’t he supposed to be on Zayn’s side?”

Zayn shrugs. “Harry can side with whoever he likes. He just has to accept the consequences.”

“Didn’t know you were that good, Malik.”

Zayn raises his eyebrows at Louis and smirks, slow and dirty. He makes his voice go low and rough and throaty as he responds, the voice that used to make Liam twitch and makes Harry go boneless, “You have no idea.”

“Yeah, no thanks, mate.” Louis pats him on the head. Liam’s gone very, very still. “You’re very pretty, but I like a little more tit and a lot less cock.”

“Your loss.”

Louis tilts his head, though, and the look in his eyes is enough to make Zayn nervous. “You would make a pretty girl, though—the eyelashes and everything. Halloween’s coming up…”

“We’re going to Josh’s party, right?” Liam breaks in, his voice a little too high and a little too fast. Or maybe Zayn’s imagining it. Probably Zayn’s imagining it.

“Party?”

“The annual Halloween bash,” Niall explains, returning to the pile. He tosses Liam a can of coke, a beer to Zayn, and drops a bag of crisps on Louis, then perches on the arm of the couch next to Zayn. “All our year goes, usually. Gets smashed.”

“So clearly we’re there,” Louis states.

“Do we have to dress up?”

“Only if you want to.” Louis waggles his eyebrows. “I’m sure we could make you up real pretty, find you a nice prom date.”

“Thanks, but never in a million years,” Zayn retorts, and when Louis tries to reply Liam grabs him and pushes him off the couch.

Later, on the car ride home, Liam waits until Niall is out of the car to speak, instead of their usual awkward silence. “I’m glad we can do this—be friends, I mean.”

Zayn sighs, draws his fingers over his thighs. “Yeah,” he says, and he thinks he means it, “Me too.”

They spend the rest of the ride debating Louis’s latest prank idea, and whether he’ll get expelled (Liam) or make their names glorious forever (Zayn).

\---

“Tonight,” Louis announces, walking backwards up the sidewalk to Josh’s house, “Is the night, my friends. I can feel it in my bones.”

“The night for what?” Zayn’s not planning on more than a few beers, really, and some sloppy makeouts with Harry if he doesn’t end up hooking up with someone else. That’s really all there is to do at parties. He’s not even entirely sure why he’s here, except these boys are impossible to say no to.

“Today,” Louis declares, throwing his arms wide and nearly hitting Niall in the face, “Eleanor finally agrees to go out with me.”  


Zayn tilts his head, and it’s Liam who reads the expression and explains, “Eleanor goes to Catholic school now, you wouldn’t have met her yet. Tommo’s been trying to convince her to go out with him for years.”

“She likes to play hard to get,” Louis admits.

“Or she just doesn’t like you,” Harry suggests, with a cheeky smile.

“Blasphemy, Harold.” Louis reaches out to yank on a curl. “Everyone likes me. I’ll get us some beers, yeah?” he adds as Zayn pushes open the door and they all file in.

Zayn looks after his disappearing back. “Do you think he really believes that?” he asks the air.

“’fraid so,” Niall confirms. Then, “Josh!” he cries, and dives into the mass of people.

It’s loud, is the thing. Like every other party Zayn’s ever been to, not that he’s been to many. But he knows enough to pull his jacket tighter over his white t-shirt, tilt up his chin, and follow after Louis. He’ll feel better after a drink or two.

He loses Harry quickly; Zayn never figure he’d hold onto him, place like this with so many people vying for his attention. Liam sticks around a little longer, but even he finds some rugby teammates who yell “Payno!” and grab him. Zayn’s okay with that, really. He makes it to the kitchen, where Louis is gesticulating wildly and grinning even more wildly at a pretty girl with brown hair and a smile almost as wicked as Louis’s, but he leaves after Louis makes clear ‘stop cockblocking me’ faces at him over his shoulder.

So he goes, saunters out around into the crowd as best he can. He sticks by the edges as best he can, where he can breathe, until, “Zayn Malik!” a girl’s voice yells, and he looks up to see Perrie approaching with a determined look. He likes Perrie—she’s in his art class and a few others, and she doesn’t put up with bullshit from anyone, including Zayn. He can admire that in a person. So he stands still, doesn’t try to escape even though she’s holding a handle of vodka.

“You look sober,” she accuses, jabbing at him with the hand that holds the vodka.

“I am sober.”

“That’s not okay.” She holds out her empty hand, and a solo cup appears in it like magic. “Shots. Shots are the only answer.”

“Shots are always the answer,” Zayn agrees. The vodka burns as it goes back, but it’s enough for him to get into a loud, emphatic argument with Perrie and a few of her friends about Hemingway, before the vodka is stolen by some rugby player who carries it back to their circle. Zayn catches a glimpse of Liam grabbing for it before he’s distracted by,

“I don’t care what he writes like, he’s a misogynistic fucker,” Leigh-Ann spits, “You can’t just overlook that!”

“But you have to, don’t you? Because it’s not like other writers were never sexist,” Zayn counters. The alcohol is hot in his veins, hot enough he can feel himself smiling despite the argument, or maybe because of it, “And anyway, he was hot as hell.”

“Since when do you like them broody, Malik?” Perrie asks, “Isn’t your type more dimpley and curly?”

“Since they were fucking Hemingway,” Zayn retorts, because this is an important point. Even if, yeah, the brooding thing would annoy the fuck out of him. He doesn’t know why people put up with him. “He, like, transcends types.”

“Are we talking about Zayn’s type?” Fingers slide into Zayn’s belt loops from behind; a warm chest presses against his back. He can hear the grin in Harry’s voice as he goes on, “I hope I was mentioned.”

“You got top billing,” Zayn informs him, pressing a kiss into Harry’s cheek, and smirks as Harry yanks his hips back into Harry’s groin in retaliation.

“Oh, get a room.” Leigh-Ann throws a piece of popcorn at them and wanders away, dragging Perrie after her. When did she even get popcorn, Zayn wonders, then forgets to wonder when Harry bites at his earlobe.

“We—fuck, Haz!—we could, you know,” he points out, tilting his head back so Harry has better access to the kisses he’s pressing down his neck. He circles his hips lazily, just to keep things interesting. Just so he can keep the buzz going beneath his skin.

“That is a brilliant idea, Zed, brilliant,” Harry agrees, and disentangles himself just long enough to press a hard, sloppy kiss to Zayn’s mouth. “Come on, Josh won’t mind if we use his bedroom as long as we don’t make a mess.”

“What if I want to make a mess,” Zayn whines, and laughs as Harry just drags him away. They make it upstairs giggling into each other’s mouths and tripping over their feet, until finally Harry fumbles open a door and they tumble backwards into it, Zayn’s back hitting the bed as Harry climbs on top of him.

They don’t waste much time kissing once they’re there, though; Zayn’s got too much fire in his blood, too much need for something he can’t define, and there’s no need to deny it, so he goes right for Harry’s zip, or as right as he can when Harry keeps nuzzling at his neck.

“Why are your jeans always so fucking tight?” Zayn swears, and shoves at Harry’s head as he laughs.

“For you to better admire my bum in. And you should talk, mister perfect hair.” Harry gets a hand in Zayn’s hair and ruffles, then his hand tightens so it pulls enough to hurt when Zayn finally manages to get his dick out of his jeans. He jerks Harry off quick and messy, swallowing Harry’s moans with his mouth.

Zayn’s about one gust of wind from just creaming his pants from the friction of Harry grinding into him and Harry’s clever tongue in his mouth when Harry comes in a stuttering wave into Zayn’s hand. Harry flops down on top of him like a useless blanket, so Zayn wipes his hand on Harry’s flannel overshirt, which gets a whining “ _Zayn_ ,” from him, then shoves a hand down his own pants, and—

Someone pounds on the door. “Zayn! Hazza? You guys in there?”

“No!” Zayn snaps back. He can hear the roughness in his voice, rubs his hand faster over him. Harry’s getting some semblance of energy back by now, though, so he shoves Zayn’s hand aside to grip Zayn’s aching dick himself.

“I don’t really care what debauched thing you’re doing in there, you’ve got to stop.” Harry’s hand slows. Louis actually sounds worried. Fuck. Zayn slams his head back against the pillow in frustration. Is it too much to ask for a bloke to get off around here?

“What’s up?” Harry calls. Easy for him to talk. He’s already gotten off.

“Liam’s in a really bad way, and he needs to get home, and he’s refusing to do anything until he sees Zayn,” Louis says through the door, a little too fast, “So would you please just get your pants on and come out before he pukes in a potted plant?”

Zayn’s already pushed Harry off of him and is re-buttoning his jeans, no matter what his dick says. “Haz—”

“Go on.” Harry lies back on the bed. His curls are a wild mess around his face, his lips are even more red and swollen than usual. Zayn barely looks at him. “Figure him out.”

Oh, god, Zayn almost laughs. If only.

He throws open the door before Louis can hit it again. Louis’s face is drawn in worried lines, but he spares a moment to waggle his eyebrows. “Having fun, are we?”

“Fuck off.” Zayn runs a hand through his hair in a vain attempt to make it look less like he was just getting off. “Where is he?”

Louis leads him back downstairs, to a fairly isolated corner where Niall is hovering over a couch. He moves aside with a grateful smile when he sees Zayn, revealing Liam sprawled over the couch, his shirt half-unbuttoned and his eyes wide.

“Zayn!” Liam makes a valiant effort to sit up. “Zayn, you’re here!”

“I am,” Zayn agrees. Liam’s cheeks are nearly as red as his lips, his limbs loose, but he doesn’t look too bad, even if he’s slurring and clearly not steady. “Heard you were looking for me.”

“My Zayn,” Liam announces happily, and grabs at Zayn’s arm and pulls so he falls onto the couch next to him. He throws his arm around Zayn, rests his head on his shoulder, and looks up at him with plaintive eyes. “Mine.”

“Okay, babe.” Liam is either going to be furious or so embarrassed when he sobers up, Zayn thinks, and darts a gaze around. Niall and Louis are the only ones close enough to hear, he thinks, and does not think about how good it feels to have Liam cuddled up to him again, how natural. “I think it’s time for you to get home.”

“Us,” Liam corrects, his lips pursing into a pout that Zayn manfully does not kiss. “Us, right? Always. You’ve got to come too.”

“Okay, us,” Zayn agrees. He needs to get Liam out of here before he accidentally outs himself. Or before he has a nervous breakdown. “Think you can get up?”

Liam’s eyebrows draw together as he thinks about it. It’s not the most adorable thing Zayn’s ever seen, but it’s close. Then he stretches up so he can whisper in Zayn’s ear, “I’m not sure. I tried, but then I fell down.”

“Did you?” Somehow, Zayn manages not to laugh. “Come on, we’ll help.” He looks to the other lads. “I can’t drive, who’s—”

“Me,” Niall replies, and holds up the keys. “If you get him moving, I can take him, you can stay—”

“Zayn’s coming too,” Liam cuts him off, “He promised. Said he’d take care of me.”

Niall raises his eyebrows, more at Zayn then Liam, and Zayn resists the urge to just slap a hand over Liam’s mouth. He had said that, once, but it hadn’t been here, it had been on a blanket under the stars, and Liam had been quietly confessing how much he hadn’t done yet. But Niall just shrugs, and helps Zayn get Liam to his feet, even if most of his weight is on Zayn. “Okay. You coming?” he asks Louis.

Louis shakes his head. “Nah, I’ll wait for Haz. We’ll find our way home. You deal with him.” He looks over to where Liam is holding onto the lapels of Zayn’s jacket like he might melt if he lets go. “Or watch Zayn do it.”

“Fuck off, Tommo,” Zayn shoots back over Liam’s shoulder. But by murmuring words of encouragement into Liam’s ear at every step, and a helpful hand at his hap, he gets Liam moving towards the car.

He manhandles Liam into the backseat of the truck, then, when Liam shows no sign of letting go of Zayn anytime soon, climbs in after him, and is hauled into the middle, so Liam can drape himself over Zayn, practically in his lap. Niall shuts the door to the driver’s side, and starts the car.

Liam moans into Zayn’s collar. If he shivers with it, no one has to know but him. “You okay, babe?” Zayn asks, and wraps a comforting hand around the back of Liam’s neck.

Liam looks up at that. “Missed that,” he says, blearily.

“Missed what?” Out of the corner of his eyes, Zayn can see Niall looking at them in the rearview mirror. But there’s nothing he can do about Liam clinging to him like an oversized koala. Nothing he wants to do, honestly, and maybe he’s selfish enough to take advantage of that.

“You calling me babe. And you. You went away.”

“ _I_ —” Zayn stops, takes a breath. This isn’t the time to argue that. “I’m back, now.”

“And mine. Even if you smell like him.” Liam licks a stripe up Zayn’s neck, and fuck—Zayn nearly jumps out of his seat. He _really_ wishes he had time to get off before. “Still mine,” Liam repeats, satisfied, and licks him again.

“Always, babe,” Zayn agrees. He rolls his eyes at Niall, so he thinks he’s just placating. He wishes he were. “You’ll tell me if you’re going to puke?”

“Feel better now you’re here.” He nestles into Zayn, like they were sitting on the beach on that far away lake. Zayn really wishes Niall sped a little bit more.

But Liam just seems to drift off to sleep, with Zayn’s hand still rubbing at his neck, until they get to his house. Then Zayn shakes his shoulder. “C’mon, babe. Time to get you to bed.”

“You coming too?” Liam asks sleepily, and _shit_ there’s no way Niall didn’t hear that.

“Come on,” Zayn repeats, as Niall kills the engine. “Think you’re all right to stand now?”

“Want to lean on you,” Liam protests, “You don’t let me anymore. Niall!” he cries, louder, and Niall comes over to open his door. “Zayn’s gonna take me to bed.”

“Oh?” Niall shoots a questioning look at Zayn. Zayn just shakes his head. Not now. Oh, please, not now.

Niall must get the message, or maybe he’s just being Niall, because he just says, “We’ll have to sneak him in. I’ll scout it out, play interference if his mom’s up, you get him upstairs. And keep him quiet.”

Zayn nods. Niall grabs a set of keys from Liam’s pocket, and ducks away.

“Okay, c’mon big boy, let’s go.” He levers Liam out of the car, up the walk after Niall.

Of course, now is the moment when Liam turns into a talkative drunk. “You’ll like my bedroom,” he says, full volume, as they get up the porch, “It has a lot of things you like in it. And you. Or it will have you in it. Once you’re—”

“Babe, you have to be quiet.” Zayn whispers, easing the front door shut behind them. “Like, when we were sneaking out this summer, yeah? And we had to be quiet.”

Liam tilts his head, makes a puzzled face. “But I don’t like it when you’re quiet. I like it when you scream my name.”

And there goes his dick again. “Fucking Christ, Li,” he mutters. “No. Not then. Not like then. When we were going out for a late fire, or something. Quiet like that.”

“ _Oh.”_ Liam nods, and is very pointedly quiet until they make it to his bedroom. Then, when Zayn closes that door, he perks up again. “Now can I make you scream?”

He is going to be canonized for this, Zayn swears. If he doesn’t just combust first.

“Let’s get you to bed, instead?” he suggests, and pushes him towards the bed.

Liam goes willingly enough, but keeps his hold on Zayn’s wrists. “Only if you come too,” he insists, and licks his lips. “Come on, Zayn. Don’t you still want me?”

Zayn looks at Liam, spread over the bed, his shirt rucked up a little so he can see the hard muscles of his stomach, his neck arched just at the right angle for Zayn to bite. “Always,” he says, because, honesty. “But you’d be mad at me in the morning.”

“Wouldn’t. Couldn’t.” Liam shakes his head. “Want you too much. Miss you too much. Please, Zayn? I’ll make it good for you, I promise. As good as Harry, better than Harry, I know what you like, I’ll do whatever you like. I can—” he starts scrabbling up to his knees.

  
Zayn pushes him back down. “No, Li.”

“But—” Liam looks down to Zayn’s crotch. Of course he’s obviously, painfully hard. How could he not be with Liam Payne throwing himself at him? But.

“No,” Zayn repeats, and gently shoves Liam back into the pillows. “Maybe if you ask me in the morning.”

“In the morning Harry’ll be there.”

Zayn sighs. “In the morning, you’ll be scared again. Good night, babe.”

He turns to go. “Wait.” He pauses. He can’t not. “Good night kiss?” Liam asks, quiet. “Before I’m afraid again.”

He shouldn’t. He really, really, really shouldn’t.

But he’s only human, so he turns, walks back to the bed. Remembers Harry, lying on a different bed, and how easy it had been to leave him.

“Night, Liam,” he says, softly, and leans down.

He only means to kiss Liam’s forehead. But Liam tilts his head up at the last second, pulls him in and then they’re kissing, really kissing. Zayn had forgotten, or hadn’t let him himself remember, just how sweet Liam could kiss when he wanted to, like Zayn was precious and good and fragile, even if he tasted like vodka and cheap beer.

He pulls back before he would never let go. Liam blinks up at him, wide-eyed, innocent, like he hadn’t just cracked Zayn’s heart a second time with the sweetness of him.

“Goodnight,” Zayn says, for a third time, and this time he closes the door behind him.

Niall’s waiting for him in the car, drumming his fingers over the steering wheel. Zayn throws himself into the passenger seat, slams the door shut. Christ, he needs a cigarette. And a nice, long wank.

“He’s good, let’s go,” he snaps.

Niall shoots him a sidelong look. “Zayn…”

Fucking hell. Zayn runs a hand through his hair. “Not now, Niall, please?”  


Niall seems to accept that, backs out of Liam’s driveway in silence. But when they’re turning onto the main road, he starts to talk.

“Harry and Liam are both my best friends. Have been for years. And I like you, a lot, you’ll probably be one of my best friends too soon if you aren’t already, but if you’re messing them about—”

“That isn’t what’s happening.” Zayn takes a long, deep breath. What’s happening isn’t his to tell. “Nothing’s happening.” Which is true too, he guesses.

“I was in the bloody car, mate.”

“Li was drunk, yeah? And I was there.” Also probably the truth, really. “And anyway, he’s straight.”

Niall snorts. He’s still not looking at Zayn, even when they pull up to a red light. “Tell me that when he stops looking at you like you hung the fucking stars.”

“He doesn’t—” He never had, and that was the problem. Just looked at him like he wanted to taste every inch of his skin. “Not mine to say, Niall. If there’s anything to say. But, just—” Zayn sighs again. He wants to be curled up next to Liam in that big, warm-looking bed. He’d take being collapsed next to Harry, too fucked out to care. “Can you please take me home?”

And thank God for Niall, who doesn’t push, who doesn’t insist, who doesn’t dig. Who just nods, and is quiet, and lets Zayn rest his head against the cool window glass and try to convince himself to forget.

\---

Zayn does his best to spend Sunday asleep.

His best is very, very good. His parents trust him to get his work done on time and not fuck up his life, so they don’t comment when he doesn’t emerge from his room for a whole day, and his sisters know better than to annoy him when he’s asleep. Except for Doniya, but she’s at school, so it doesn’t count.

So before he goes to bed that night he shuts off his phone, and when he wakes up again at noon he doesn’t turn it back on, just curls into his blankets. He doesn’t want to talk to anyone who might call or text him. Not Louis, who requires energy, or Niall, who might ask questions Zayn still can’t answer, not Harry, who somehow already knows Zayn too well. And not Liam. Zayn’s not sure what Liam would say, but he’s almost certain he doesn’t want to hear it. He doesn’t even try to pull out a book any of the times he wakes up that afternoon, or his sketchpad; he just cranks up whatever band Harry’s been trying to get him into this week, pulls his blankets over his head, and goes back to sleep.

“Zayn.” There’s a warm hand on his shoulder. “Zayn, come on, wake up.”

Zayn flails out a hand to make the voice go away and rolls over.

“Zayn,” the voice says again, a little firmer. The hand is patting his cheek now, tracing the line of what will hopefully be his beard one day, over his cheekbones. It’s a nice feeling. Zayn leans into it, makes a pleased noise so the hand will keep going. “Zayn, wake up.”

“Don’ wanna.”

“It’s half-six, love, you at least need to eat.” There’s laughter in that voice, now. Zayn almost recognizes it.

“Nuh-uh.”

“Can’t have you wasting away. You don’t have any fat to waste.”

“Calling me fat?”

“No, I wasn’t, and you know it.”

“Don’t know anything, I’m not awake.” But Zayn blinks anyway, because clearly Liam’s not going away until he wakes up. “Hey babe,” he says, and smiles up at him, turning his face into Liam’s palm.

Then, “Fuck, Liam!” Zayn yanks away, scrambles back so he can sit up against the headboard. “What are you doing here?”

Liam pulls his hand back slowly, then puts it on his hip. His sweatpants are dangerously low on his hips; he’s got a tank top on under his unzipped hoodie and Zayn balls his hands into fists around the sheets so he doesn’t touch.

“You wouldn’t answer your phone.”

“Oh.” Right. That actually makes sense, in a worried Liam sort of way. “It’s off.” He leans across the bed to pick it up off of his bedside table, and it’s only when he feels Liam’s eyes on him that he realizes he never bothered to put a shirt on.

It makes him pause for a second, but then he keeps going. It’s nothing Liam hasn’t seen before. But he’s more conscious than usual of his muscles moving underneath his skin, of the ink drawn across his shoulder, as he thumbs on his phone and settles back into the middle of the bed.

He has seven missed calls and thirteen texts. Two of the calls are from Harry, one’s from Louis. The rest are Liam. The first text is from Niall, making sure he’s not dead; two are from Louis asking if he wants to hang out, one that is either some hipster smiley face or a butt-text from Harry and another from him asking if he wants to come over, and eight are from Liam, starting with ‘shiiiiiit Z, im sssso sry,’ and then to ‘r u ded? plz zyn dont b ded’ and ending with ‘if u dnt pickkk up ur phone rite now im cming over.’

Zayn looks up from his phone, raises his eyebrows. Liam hasn’t moved, but he shrugs like he reads the question from Zayn’s mind. “I couldn’t tell if you were ignoring me or had gotten alcohol poisoning. Then when Harry said you hadn’t answered him either…”

“I wasn’t the one badly off last night,” Zayn retorts. Then regrets it when Liam’s eyebrows draw together, when he reels back like Zayn pushed him. “Sorry.”

“No.” Liam rolls his shoulders back, lifts his chin. It looks like he’s going to war, like he’s girding himself for battle. Like he can’t not do this thing. “You’re right. That’s why I’m here. I need to apologize.”

Zayn knew he didn’t want to hear what Liam had to say. He doesn’t want to think about last night, doesn’t want to think of Liam calling him his, of Liam’s lips on his. He just needs to put it behind him again. “You really don’t.”

“No, I do.” Liam’s jaw is jutting out in that determined way he has, that’s not going to be deterred or diverted. “For a lot, but last night too.”

“Please, don’t. Don’t apologize. Not for the summer.” Zayn thinks that would actually break him into a million tiny pieces.

“What? No!” Liam’s eyes go wide, and he takes a step forward, as if in protest. Zayn draws back as he does, because he—he can’t deal with it, with Liam close to him again, and Liam freezes. “Not for that. _Never_ for that.”

Zayn finds he can breathe again. “Then for what?”

“For—well, for last night, obviously, because that wasn’t very well done of me, but for—look, you weren’t an experiment or anything, okay?”

“Liam, you don’t—”

“No, I do.” He’s still standing, straight and tall, in the middle of Zayn’s room with its comics and drawings and posters on all the walls, a single moment of stillness. “I probably should have said this over the summer, but—I didn’t think it was going to be an issue.”

Zayn nods, tries for a joke. “Yeah, gotta say, I didn’t see the Grease thing coming. New schools aren’t usually this eventful.”

Liam just looks at him, and Zayn shuts up.

“I’ve known I was into guys since I was fifteen,” Liam says, steadily.

“But you didn’t—”

“No,” Liam agrees. Not that Zayn needed confirming. Some reactions are hard to fake. “I didn’t—act on it, or anything. But I knew. I just…” he sighs. “I got bullied a lot as a kid, right?”

“Louis told me. And I get that, I get—”

Liam just talks over him. “But by the time I was fifteen, I had—I had started boxing, and I was on the rugby team, and I didn’t look like a nerd, and I was finally normal. I just—I didn’t want to ruin all that.”

Zayn gets it. Or, sort of. He’s never quite known what it’s like to be normal, to fit in. He’s never wanted to, if he’s honest, never let himself want to, because he’s known it was a lost cause since he was eight. But he can see why one would. Why one would hide rather than endure, if one could.

“But—it’s not that bad here, is it? Harry’s out, and me, and we don’t—well, Harry doesn’t—”

“Harry’s Harry.” Liam waves a dismissive hand, rolls his eyes a little in the way he always kind of looks at Harry, fond but uncomprehending. “Everyone loves him, it’d be a crime or something to pick on him. Like kicking a kitten.” Zayn’s not sure it’s that easy, being Harry—he thinks of a sad voice saying how he’s never been in love, of so much love thrown his way that Harry just sucks in and still is never sure it’s enough, that he’s enough. Zayn can’t do that, just give and give and give, or maybe he’s too willing to do that and would give until there was nothing left of him. But Liam doesn’t want to hear any of that. “And you’re,” Liam goes on, gesturing helplessly at Zayn. “You.”

“What’s one more name to be called?” Zayn fills in. It doesn’t sting. It’s true enough. He wears ‘gay’ among his other badges of honor.

“No, that’s not what—” Liam runs a hand over his head. “I’m not as brave as you.”

Zayn snorts. “I’m not brave.” There’s a laugh.

“You are. You really are. You just stand there and take it and don’t care, and I don’t—I can’t. I want to be normal. I can’t not care. I wish it was different, I wish it was still the summer, but it’s not.”

“I know.” Zayn throws the blankets off of him, swings his legs over the edge of the bed so he can brace his elbows on his knees and rest his head in his hands. “I don’t care what you do. I’ll support you either way, or whatever way. But not—not like that.”

“I know. I’m not—I wouldn’t ask you to. You have Harry, and I don’t—I won’t—I’m not going to mess that up. I just—you needed to know, or I needed to tell you, or something.” Zayn doesn’t bother to correct him about him and Harry. Maybe it’s petty, a lie of omission. He thinks he’s allowed some petty, what with his heart breaking every time he looks at Liam.

“Just—” Maybe he’ll take this other thing too, to soothe the cracks, the truth of it. So at least he can know what he failed to balance against. “I get everyone at school, like, that’s hard, I know. But—why not the boys? They wouldn’t care, and you tell each other everything—oh.” It dawns on him in the wry twist of Liam’s lips, self-deprecating and amused. “Which one?”

“Louis,” Liam answers. “And I couldn’t tell the others because they’d have told him, he can get a secret out of anyone. And neither of them can keep a secret for shit.” Zayn hopes, for his sake, that he’s underestimating his friends. He’s pretty sure he is, given the way Niall talked last night, that there’s just never been a real reason to keep secrets before. But that’s another thing that’s not his to say. He is good at keeping secrets.

“But that’s not still…” he thinks he can read Liam well enough to tell. But he’s thought that before, too, and got dumped for it.

“God, no. He’s so…” Liam shudders. Zayn manages to laugh at that, and Liam smiles back at him, a little sheepish, a little hopeful. “So. Friends, still?”

Zayn pushes to his feet. He considers going for a hug, but he doesn’t know if this fragile equilibrium can last with that much touch. So he holds out a hand instead. “Yeah.” Liam takes his hand, squeezes it firmly, solidly, like he means it, like he could be Zayn’s anchor in this uncertain, too cruel world. “Always.”

\---

He gets shoved into a locker on Tuesday.

Not in, in; he’s just walking down the hall, in a bit of a rush because he’s supposed to be meeting the lads at Liam’s car and he’s late—it’s a bit of a perpetual problem with him—when someone’s shoulder jams into him and he goes crashing into the metal, his head slamming so hard against a hinge that he sees stars.

The lightning flash of pain, and his distraction over his art term project, means he doesn’t have time to react before a heavy hand is on either side of his head. In another situation, with another boy, Zayn thinks dazedly, this would be pretty hot.

“Hey, faggot,” Anderson rumbles. It’s not a good rumble, like the sound Harry’s laugh makes when he lies with Zayn’s head resting on his chest, the sort of rumble Zayn’s always figured trolls make. “Whatcha drawing? Picture of your booooyfriend?”

“Nah,” Zayn says, to dizzy to remember not to react, “’s a naked picture of your mom.”

Something flashes in Anderson’s eye, like a wild animal. For the first time in years, Zayn’s actually a little afraid. Normally he’s protected by crowds, by the other people around him, by his own disinterest, but he’s not sure this guy’s thinking about anything like that, not once he’s been goaded. He thinks, for a split second, of apologizing, but his rational brain isn’t working and fucking _hell_ if he’ll ever apologize to someone like that.

“Why, you little—” Anderson draws his fist back, and Zayn has just enough thought left in him to tilt his head back and turn his face so he probably won’t break his nose, and—

“Sick burn, mate!” Niall’s laughter rings out, bright enough to turn heads and make everyone look at them. To bring Anderson to his senses. His fist drops. Zayn sucks in a breath, then winces at the pain of it.

Niall ambles over, his hands stuffed in his jeans pocket. He’s smiling, as always, but there’s almost an edge to his voice as he throws an arm over Zayn’s shoulder. “Hey, Anderson. What’s up?”

“Nothing.” Anderson takes a step back, glares, hard, at Zayn. “Just chatting with Malik here.”

“Mind if I steal him? We’ve got places to be, things to do.” Niall doesn’t wait for an answer before he’s tugging Zayn away, down the hall, fast enough that Zayn’s stumbling.

“You have really awesome timing,” Zayn observes. He’s still a little slaphappy, he guesses, and he’s probably leaning on Niall more than usual. “Like, really brilliant. ‘s like you were waiting or something.”

“Just lucky.” Niall frowns at Zayn, and that’s not a good look, Niall shouldn’t frown. Zayn reaches out to push at the corners of Niall’s lips, push them up into a smile. It must work, because Niall’s grinning when Zayn’s hands fall back to his hips. “Okay, we need to get you smashed sometime, this is hilarious.”

“I’m always hilarious,” Zayn retorts, as they walk through the doors. The cold air hits him like a bucket of water, breaking through the haze. “Li knows first aid, right? He can tell if I’m concussed?”

“Yeah. Do you think you are?”

“Don’t think so. Didn’t feel hard enough.” Because Niall was there. Because he had gotten there in time. Because he had known where to find him. “Did you figure out my course schedule so you could make sure I was never dead in a locker?”

Niall flushes. “Might’ve, yeah.”

“That’s hella creepy.” But Zayn turns, pulls Niall into a hug. He doesn’t know how he found these boys, but he’s infinitely glad he did.

“Aw, Haz, I think you should be jealous. Niall’s clearly moving in on your man.”

“Oh! How dare he?” Harry throws himself onto Niall’s back, his arms long enough to reach around Zayn too. Zayn holds in his wince at the jostling of his head in order to focus on the warmth of Harry’s embrace. “There is only one answer.”

“Mortal combat?”

“Threesome!”

“That’s your answer to everything, Hazza,” Zayn points out, and lets his forehead rest against Niall’s cheek for one more second before he pulls away.

“And yet we haven’t done it yet. I’m sensing inequality in this relationship.” Harry dimples at him from over Niall’s shoulder, and Zayn grins back.

  
“That’s cause—”

“Why are you bleeding?” Liam interrupts.

That stops everyone. Harry even lets go of Niall. “I am?” Zayn asks.

“Yeah, here.” He hadn’t noticed Liam coming up behind him, but he freezes when Liam’s strong, blunt fingers graze over the back of his scalp, feather light. There’s still pain where they touch, though, and Zayn can’t help but flinch.

“Anderson,” Niall explains. He’s got that frown back on. “Had him against a locker when I got there.”

“He—” Harry reaches out to grab Louis’s arm before he marches off to take the revenge glinting in his eyes.

“Don’t, Tommo,” Zayn sighs.

  
“But he—”

“Not worth it.”

“You’re bleeding,” And it’s Liam who hisses it out. Calm, even-tempered Liam, who hadn’t even yelled when Safaa had accidentally ruined his favorite t-shirt, who sounds like he’s ready to commit murder. “He hurt you, Zayn.”

“He’ll leave me alone if I ignore him.” Zayn turns so he can look at Liam, pivoting in Liam’s grip so his hand is cupping the base of Zayn’s neck, his thumb right over the pulse point. “There’s no point in fighting.”

“He hurt you,” Liam repeats, nearly growling. Zayn had forgotten, almost—or no, just underestimated, played down in his memories—how Liam’s eyes could burn, could blaze. With righteous fury, with lust. “He can’t just get away with it.”

“It’s not worth you getting in trouble.”

“Do you think I care?”

Yes, Zayn wants to say. Yes, I think you care a lot. I think that’s why you do most things.

But instead Zayn just sighs again, brings a hand up to cover Liam’s. “Babe. Please.”

Liam exhales, and visibly deflates. “Fine,” he says, suddenly almost snappish instead of his incandescent fury. But his hand is still gentle as he squeezes once, lightly, then lets go. “Let’s get you home and cleaned up.”

“So we aren’t beating anyone up?” Louis asks, and Zayn nearly jumps. He had forgotten the other boys even existed—and by the sudden guilty look on Liam’s face, he thinks Liam had too.

“No,” Liam confirms. He takes a careful step away from Zayn. “We aren’t, so get in the car.”

Zayn looks down at the portfolio still clutched against his side, rather than watch Liam walk away. But when he judges it finally safe to look up, Harry’s got clear green eyes fixed on him, his head tilted. Like he’s figuring something out.

Luckily, Zayn knows Harry’s kryptonite. “So it seems I’ve been injured,” he purrs, moving closer so he can whisper in Harry’s ear, rough and dirty, “Want to play doctor?”

Harry’s laugh rumbles out of him. The good kind of rumble, to forget the bad. “Oh, always, Zaynie.”

“Then get in the car,” and, for good measure, he slaps Harry’s ass as he goes. Harry yelps, and turns to scowl at him, but Harry’s scowl is about as intimidating as a kitten frowning, so Zayn ruffles his hair and shoves him into the car.

As usual, it takes Louis and Harry ten minutes to settle on the correct radio station, then five more minutes to bicker about how another one would be better. It’s loud and raucous and ridiculous and Liam is staring quietly out the front and Niall is headbanging along to whatever song comes on, but Harry’s hand is also steady on Zayn’s knee and Niall’s shoulder is pressed against him, and Louis had been ready to charge off in his defense, and Liam—and _Liam_ —so Zayn blurts out, interrupting Louis’s rant about big toes, “Can I ask a favor?”

“’course.”

“What’s up?”

“Always.”

“Yeah, but it’ll cost you your firstborn.”

It’s not how Zayn meant to ask. He hadn’t even been sure he had meant to ask. But—it’s his boys. And it’s in the open now.

“So, my art class has this final project, right? And it’s supposed to be a bunch of works on a theme.”

“Specific.”

“ _Louis_.”

“So I was thinking—would you all mind if I did some drawings of you? I was thinking, like, a portrait of each of you? You wouldn’t have to pose or anything, I just wanted to make sure it was okay—” And he’s babbling. He cuts himself off before he says something really stupid.

“Of course.” Niall shrugs. “’s not like you don’t draw us all the time.”

“Yeah, but—”

“I think he’s saying he cares! Aw, look at him, all grown up and talking about his feelings.” Louis smirks at Zayn in the rearview mirror. Zayn extricates his hand to give him a two-fingered salute.

“Nah, just couldn’t resist the urge to draw me,” Harry shoots back. Louis sticks his tongue out.

“You? He can do nude studies of you whenever he wants. Clearly, it was my innate beauty that made need to request I be his muse.”

“I’m sleeping with him, I get to be his muse.”

“Oh, young Harold, muses transcend little things like sexuality.”

Zayn ignores them. There’s one left, and it’s—he can’t do this if Liam won’t. But he’d understand if he didn’t, if he remembers other drawings too well. Or if he thinks Zayn won’t do him justice, not like this…

They pull up to a stoplight. Liam twists in his seat so he can meet Zayn’s gaze, and his eyes are on fire again. “Yeah,” he says, “Yeah, of course.”

“You sure?”

It’s meant for Liam, sort of, but it’s Harry who answers, nuzzling into Zayn’s neck. “You didn’t have to ask.”

\---

Zayn starts to draw them, then. Not a start on the actual project, that’ll come later, just little sketches whenever they’re hanging around. Studies, of a sort. He needs to learn the curve of Harry’s smile, the movement in Niall’s arms, the tilt of Louis’s smirk. He fills pages and pages with them, hands and chests and ears and hair and knees. But he doesn’t let anyone see. Partly because he doesn’t want them to see, to see his heart set out in graphite and ink. But more because it’s pretty obvious Liam’s not in there, and they might ask questions.

And he can’t explain it, can’t say that it’s because he doesn’t need to practice drawing Liam. That he’s memorized every line and curve of him, every nook that Zayn could find. That he doesn’t need to draw Liam on paper because he’s etched into his heart.

\---

The thing about Zayn—the thing that’s almost always been the final nail in the friendship coffin—is that he’s moody. Or, more accurately, he gets in moods. Not often, not always for long, but some days he just wakes up hating the world and everyone in it. He deals with the hatred, usually, by not dealing with the world at all. Which is quite easy when he doesn’t have friends at school, as usually happens.

Today is one of those days. He doesn’t know what sparked it—there isn’t always a reason, anyway—but he just can’t.

He goes to school because his mom wouldn’t let him call in sick, and he’s never actually been daring enough to skip. But he puts on his most off-putting scowl, the one that didn’t warn Harry away that first day, and keeps _Crime and Punishment_ close to hand. No one ever approaches a kid reading Dostoyevsky.

It works pretty well. Louis gives him an odd look in Chemistry, but they aren’t doing partner work so he doesn’t have to deal with his incessant chatter, and Zayn gets to English late enough he doesn’t have to talk to Harry, then spends lunch outside chain smoking so he doesn’t have to make excuses not to talk to people. None of them come to check on him. It’s what he wants, but it irritates him. Shouldn’t they be worried? What if he were shooting up cocaine right now?

Art, his last period, should be easy; he’s friendly with Perrie and Jade, but not enough that they’d brave his glare, even if they keep whispering and giving him worried look. But nothing’s turning out. At all. By the time class is over, he’s almost thrown his pen across the room half a dozen times, and stabbed through the paper twice. All he wants to do when the bell rings is go home and go to sleep, Friday be damned.

He’s halfway out of school before he remembers. Friday. Louis’s game. It’s a big deal or something. All of them were going to go.

Zayn huffs at a breath. He really, really doesn’t want to. He loves the lads, but he can’t guarantee the safety of anyone who talks to him today. On the other hand, he’s not sure Louis would forgive him for bailing. Or he would hold it over his head _forever_ , and Zayn’s not in a bad enough mood to not be afraid of that.

So Zayn grumbles under his breath, turns, and stalks towards the football field.

The other three boys are already there when Zayn drops his bag onto the bleacher and sits down with a thump and a bit of a glare.

“Zayn!” The glares never did work on Harry. He throws himself over to land on top of Zayn. “You’ve been missing all day!”

“I’ve been here,” Zayn replies, trying not to snap, and pushes Harry off of him.

Harry sits up, a hurt kitten look on his face. Zayn almost feels bad. “You okay?”

“Fine.”

“Moody.” Niall observes.

“Fuck off.”

“What’s wrong, Zayner?” Harry asks, going wheedling this time. He’s got a little smile on, like he knows he can get the answer if he just turns up the charm enough. Zayn sort of wants to punch him.

“Nothing. Just leave me alone.” Harry jerks back like Zayn did punch him. And there’s another reason they wouldn’t work, Zayn thinks, moodily enough that he might be being unfair, because Harry cared what people he loved thought about him. He might have grown up with Louis, who could be capricious and cruel, but he’d never learned how to deal with sharpness.

Zayn digs in his pockets for his cigarettes, because he needs one now more than anything.

“Zayn.” Zayn jerks his glare to Liam. He just meets his gaze steadily, not giving an inch. “You can’t smoke here. We’re on school grounds.”

“I give the least amount of fucks possible.” He pulls out a cigarette, flicks his lighter open.

Liam calmly plucks it out of his hands. “You’ll care tomorrow, when you’re suspended.”

“Can’t—”

“Can.” Liam confiscates the rest of his pack too, tucks it into the pocket of his jeans. Zayn considers going for it anyway, but he is so not in the mood for pretending he isn’t being suggestive. “Louis doesn’t have to know if you go to sleep.”

“Don’t—”

“Zayn, you always want to sleep.”

Zayn really can’t argue that. He leans back so his neck is resting against the cool metal of the riser behind him, kicks his combat boots up onto the tier in front, and closes his eyes. It’s all he cares about, right now.

“Liam,” he hears Niall breath, impressed. “Are you magic?”

“’s like you’re the Zayn whisperer,” Harry agrees.

“Still awake,” Zayn snaps. Because clearly, it’s true. Because clearly Liam still knows how to push when he needs pushing and when to step back when he needs space. And if that’s not a kick to his bad mood, he doesn’t know what is.

Later, he drifts vaguely awake when there’s a particularly loud cheer. He’s fallen over into someone’s lap; their hand is rubbing circles on the back of his neck, one finger tracing over the still-healing scab. Zayn inhales, and breathes in Liam, and drifts back to sleep.

He wakes again to a delighted screech, right in his ear. It’s enough to make him blink, at least. “Huh?”

“Did you sleep through it all?” Louis demands. He’s sitting on the lowest bleacher, sweaty and dirty, and he’s grinning like he can’t stop.

“Yeah.”

“He—” Liam starts, probably in his defense, but Niall cuts in.

“It’s was for everyone’s benefit. He’s in a mood.”

“That why he went AWOL?”

“Must be,” Harry agrees. He leans over so his curls fall between their faces. “You okay now?”

“Not if everyone keeps talking about me like I’m not here.” Zayn straightens, rolling out his neck. Liam scoots away the second he breaks contact. Good to know he could swallow the risk of touching Zayn for at least a minute, Zayn thinks uncharitably.

“Hey, thought I was supposed to be the bitchy one.” Louis raises his eyebrows.

Zayn swallows down the retort that jumps to his lips. He can’t be here. Can’t be here, and not lose these boys. Not lose everything that makes this year bearable. “Sorry. I’m going home.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Harry asks, again.

“Yes, Haz, I’m fucking fine, now fuck off!” Zyan snaps. He almost regrets it the minute Harry’s eyes get baby-doll wide, and Louis glares, but Harry pushes when Zayn doesn’t have an answer, needs him to explain things he can’t. “Look, sorry. I’m—not good with people today. I’ll go.”

He snatches his bag off the bleachers before Harry has a chance to respond, starts to stomp off with the satisfying angsty thump of his boots.

“Zayn.” He pauses, lets Liam spin him around and press his cigarettes back into his hand. Liam holds that grip, looks into his eyes in that utterly sincere way he has. “See you tomorrow.”

And isn’t that just great, Zayn thinks, that even when Zayn’s being a moody bastard Liam still knows exactly what to say?

\---

After twelve hours of sleep, Zayn wakes up back on the right side of the bed.

Which actually isn’t that much of an improvement, given that he might have just lost four of the best friends he’s ever had. If they can’t deal with his moods, he guesses, they aren’t real friends—but he doesn’t want to think that. Doesn’t want to think about these boys, of all people, not being real friends. Of losing them.

So he actually rolls out of bed with his alarm, instead of needing his mom to drag him out with grumbles and the occasional swearing, and he gets to school early, even with his stop on the way.

He’s never actually been this early, but he’s heard them talk about what they do in the morning, so he heads towards the cafeteria. Niall and Harry are sitting at their table, their heads bent together, each with an earbud in one ear. The early morning sun is soft in their hair, their skin, turning Niall into a blaze of sunlight and Harry into his dark-haired shadow.

Zayn pauses a few feet away from the table. They’re too involved in the music to notice him. He could just go. Leave. Not hear them yell. Not hear them tell him they can’t be friends anymore. Let them just think he’s a prick and that’s all and hide for the rest of the year.

“Were you ever planning to move?”

Zayn almost jumps out of his skin, but he manages to catch himself before he drops any of the bags in his hands and turns to Liam. “Not sure,” he admits.

“They don’t bite.”

“Says you.”

“Zayn—” Liam rolls his eyes, and grabs his bicep to drag him forward. Zayn’s almost too busy digging his heels in, mainly out of instinct, to notice how warm Liam’s skin is, how his hand wraps almost entirely around Zayn’s arm. “You were in a mood yesterday. Yeah. Hate to break it to you, but you aren’t always easy to get along with.”

“I know that.” He does. Oh god, does he. “But they didn’t, and now they do, and—”

“I meant normally, Zayn.” Liam swings him around so he can grab his other shoulder. Zayn had forgotten how easily Liam could manhandle him like this, after months of Harry’s easy languidness. He shivers with it, with the memory of Liam pulling him into his body. Then he looks at Liam’s serious face, and tries to forget. Liam’s serious face always makes him want to fall into his soul, rather than his body. “Zayn. You’re snarky, you like jokes that are sometimes mean, and you never, ever, say everything you’re thinking. You are not easy to get along with. And we’re all still friends with you. I—Harry still wants you,. It’ll be okay.”

Zayn can’t argue with Liam’s serious face, never could. He just nods a little helplessly, because Liam’s hands are still sending sparks through his body, and it’s too early for this, too early to want him this badly. Too early to remember he’s trying not to.

“Good.” Liam lets him go, and shoves him towards the table.

Harry looks up when Zayn stumbles towards him, and he looks—hesitant, almost, in a way that shoots Zayn right in the heart.

“I’m sorry,” he says, before Harry or Niall can speak. “I was a dick, and I’m sorry. Donuts?” he holds out the bag like a peace offering.

Niall eyes it, his face as stern as he can make it. Which, admittedly, is not very stern. “Is there jelly filled?”

“’course.”

“Then you’re forgiven.” Niall snatches the bag from him.

Harry just blinks. He looks very young, in an almost disturbing sort of way. “Are you going to be mean again?”

“Not right now. I get—moody, I guess. I should have warned you.” He feels, rather than sees, Liam hovering behind him, strong and quiet, in case Zayn needs him. But not speaking, in case Zayn doesn’t.

Which he doesn’t. Which he can’t.

Then Harry grins, bright and easy as ever. “Nah, I shouldn’t have pushed. It was pretty obvious you didn’t want me talking.”

“I still shouldn’t have—yeah. We’re good?”

Harry pats the seat next to him. “’course, Zayner.”

“Are we all a big happy family again?” Louis asks, throwing himself down into his usual seat. “Good. It’s exhausting when we fight. And I wasn’t kidding when I warned you against encroaching on my territory of being a bitch. I will slap fight you.”

“Lou—” Zayn starts. He knows Louis can hold a grudge—but Louis just waves his hand dismissively. “You’re here before school. I’m pretty sure the apocalypse is coming, we can’t die on a bad note.”

“Love you too, Tommo,” Zayn retorts, but he’s smiling even though it’s before eight am. Even though he means it, and that scares him more than he can say. Accept what you can’t change, but love is something he can’t change, and it’s far too soon too fast again, and he isn’t sure how not to be hurt again.

\---

He draws Niall, first. He’s the easiest—not uncomplicated, no, catch those layers in the stubborn set of his jaw, the deftness of the fingers wrapped around his guitar, the solidity of his shoulders, wide enough to shelter under. But easy, because that’s who he is too— understanding, forthright. Laughter starting in his throat and then into his flushed cheeks. Wide stance, slouched shoulders, because he relaxes whenever he can, relaxes Zayn by just looking at him. But a smile, always, because Niall isn’t Niall without one, wide but not overwhelming, just welcoming, bringing you in on the joke. Bright, dancing eyes, happy and content without thinking about it too hard. A hint of secrets, yes, in the corners of that gaze, and some of the anger he only holds for his friends, but nothing that weighs him down. Just the sort of acceptance Zayn strives for, but spends too much time thinking—brooding, some might say—to achieve.

  
Zayn smiles, traces the line of the arm holding the guitar, and folds the sketchbook closed.

\---

“Tell me more,” Harry mumbles. His head is resting on Zayn’s shoulder, thighs pressed against each other on the couch, but they’re not messing around or anything. Zayn’s got a book open on his lap, Harry’s had his ipod in for the last hour or so.

“Hm?”

“Tell me more,” Harry repeats.

“Like, does he have a car?” Louis’s been singing songs from Grease for the past week.

“Does he?”

“Who?”

“Summer boy. Does he have a car? Did you make out in it? Did you drive somewhere remote to have sex in the backseat?”

“Yeah, then we got mauled by a werewolf,” Zayn deadpans, and yanks on a curl to hide his blush. They had, of course, just to get away, to find somewhere private where neither of their families could barge in. Snuck out in the middle of the night, drove and drove and drove, windows down, their fingers tangled together, far enough that it finally, finally, felt like everything, the insults and the pressures and the weight of being him, were left behind, not just buried. Liam must have left a lot of things behind too on those drives, though he hadn’t known what then. Thought he could just lose himself in Liam’s solidity, the goodness of him. He hopes Liam managed to lose himself in Zayn, somehow, if only the uncertainty and hiding.

“You did,” Harry crows, satisfied, and Zayn jolts out of his thought, “You were totally thinking about it right then.”

“Maybe I was just plotting something nefarious.”

“Nah, you had your smile on.”

“Smile?”

Harry straightens to trace the corners of Zayn’s lips. It’s not sexual at all, though it might look like it; there’s something innocent in the gesture, like only Harry can do, something wondering and amazed and a little happy. “It’s your ‘him’ smile. You only get it when you’re thinking about summer guy.”

Zayn considers debating it, but he can’t see his own face, and he wouldn’t be surprised if Harry’s right. He’ll have to watch himself.

“’s cute,” Harry’s going on, “’s all mysterious and shit, too.”

“Mysterious is my thing.”

“Only to people who don’t know you,” Harry counters. Zayn shoves at him. He topples over onto the couch, flailing a little for balance, then resigns himself to the situation and turns against the couch, his head against the armrest, crossing his arms over his chest. “Mean, Malik. Mean.”

“Mean and mysterious. Finally you’re getting it.” Zayn turns too, so he can face Harry, tucking his legs underneath him and leaning back against the other arm.

“You wish you had that image.”

“Haz, I define image.”

Harry’s face screws up. “Does that make sense?”

“Not really,” Zayn admits.

“Anyway. The summer guy.”

“What about him?”

Harry’s quiet, for a second, his fingers drumming against the bared skin of his forearm. “Was it worth it?”

“Wh—”

“I mean, you smile when you think of him, so that’s good, right? But you also seem so sad, sometimes, even with the smile, and you’re so gone for him still, even after all this time, and well, me, which isn’t insulting at all, promise, and that’s—like, that’s got to hurt, right? So—”

“I don’t know,” Zayn breaks in, before Harry can ramble anymore. “I don’t, like, they’re good memories, yeah? It was brilliant, for a while. But now—” Trying to forget. Trying to hide. Trying not to brood on what had gone wrong, why he hadn’t been enough, or done enough, or said enough. “I don’t know. Ask me tomorrow, maybe I’ll tell you differently.”

“Is there, like, any hope? Next summer, or something?” Harry looks so, so hopeful, rising up a bit like the thought’s just occurred to him, like the sun is coming out from the clouds. Zayn wishes he could absorb some of that hope. He hates to crush him.

“I don’t think so.”

“But—you love him.” Like that’s all there is to it. Like it’s that simple. Maybe it would be, for him, with his charm and smiles.

“It’s more complicated than that, Hazza.” Zayn sighs. It feels like it comes out of his soul. “Like, he cut me off, right? Stopped talking to me. And—” it can’t hurt to share this, to say something, for once. To get a little off his chest. To let someone in, just the tiniest bit. No way it could circle back, anyway. “I’m not sure he’s out, at home. So ‘s not like I could—like anything could happen.”

Harry’s face falls. Zayn almost thinks he sees tears glinting in the corners of his eyes, but that’s got to be too much even for Harry. “That’s horrible!”

Zayn shrugs. “His decision, right? Nothing I can do about it.”

“Yeah, but he was using you and—don’t you care? Like, don’t you want to go and convince him you’re worth it?”

The words make Zayn wince, so close to what he thought before. But, “It’s his choice,” Zayn repeats, “I can’t have anything to do with it, or it’s not—not his. I won’t be that guy.” There are some things he won’t waver on. And some things he can’t change.

Harry’s smiling, though his eyes are still sad. “You’re the worst bad boy ever, you know?” he points out, “Being all noble and self-sacrificing. I’m pretty sure I’m not attracted to you now that you’re not mean and mysterious.”

Zayn makes the conscious effort not to dwell. “I’ll show you bad boy,” he says instead, and launches himself at Harry in a full-on tickle attack.

\---

He draws Louis next. Louis is harder. Harder to pick a pose for, to choose a setting, because part of Louis’s genius is his ability to take any setting and control it. After a prank would be the obvious solution, glowing with mischief and his own genius, but Zayn’s never picked the easy way out. But action, definitely, because Louis is action, motion.

So Zayn puts him on a field, with a ball at his feet. Muscles twisting, his hair fly-away as he rarely lets it be anywhere else. Face intense, the expression that usually hides behind grins and manic laugher, and mature with it ready to take on the world and win, but tempered by the glint in his eyes, the laughter in them, because Louis is laughter too, wild and uncontained. The most like Zayn, in some ways, in the fire burning beneath his skin, the need sometimes just to act, to do, to watch things burn for the sake of the fire. But also in the facades he puts up—the chaos and laughter around him to hide the center that is as gooey as anyone Zayn’s ever known. He chose to be different, to stand out, not because he had to, like Zayn, but because he wanted to, wanted to catch all eyes so he could guide them away from those he loved who wanted to hide. Catch that in the strength of him, the way he twists to show the muscles of his legs, the grin, his fierceness in his friends’ defense, the tenderness hidden beneath the wild.

It’s a good start, Zayn decides, looking at the drawing. As much of Louis as one could ever hope to catch.

\---

“It’s about the soul of it, really, not the like, outer trappings,” Zayn insists, and waves his hands like that’d get the point across. He doesn’t think it will, but that’s no matter.

Sure enough, Perrie just laughs in his face. “That is such a load of bullshit. Art needs to look good. As you clearly know.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Zayn leans back against the locker and crosses his arms. He considers resting one foot flat against the wall, but decides that would be too James Dean, even for him. Or not enough, because he can’t smoke here.

“Means you know you’re fucking fit, Malik, don’t give me that.” She pokes at the collar of his jacket. “With your gel and leather jacket. How long does it take you to get ready in the morning? Art doesn’t have to look good,” she shakes her head, mock-despairing, “Right.”

“I’m not art, it’s different.”

“Says the boy with tattoos up his arm,” she shoots back, and he shrugs, laughing too, because it’s a Friday and art class got out early so he and Perrie have spent the last ten minutes just chatting and messing around in the hall before everyone else gets out. She’s another one of those people, he thinks, that he could have fallen for, in another life, if he was into girls and had met her at the right time—clever and sarcastic and bright.

“Trying to get our women into burkhas?” A voice shouts from down the hallway. Zayn turns to look, even though he doesn’t really have to—Anderson’s glowering at them from a hall away.

“Your woman?” Perrie yells, and flips him off.

His face does something complicated that Zayn can’t begin to interpret, but ends in him crossing his arms over his chest and calling back, “Better mine than that faggot’s!”

“Fuck off, Anderson.” Perrie very deliberately turns away. His eyes narrow, but he lumbers off, swearing under his breath. Zayn stares after him.

“He _knows_ I have tattoos. He’s ragged on me about them. And he’s seen the way I dress. Does he really think I care about that shit?” he asks. It’s a rhetorical question more than anything, but still. It’s just so stupid.

“I don’t think he does much thinking at all,” Perrie observes.

“Yeah, but it’s like—I swear, he’s got it out for me, and it’s not just ‘cause of all the…” Zayn waves a hand at himself, trying to indicate all the things that could be wrong with him. He doesn’t really care, of course—what he cannot change, and all—but it’s a puzzle, and he likes solving those. “He’s just like, always there.”

“Maybe it’s pulling pigtails.” Perrie grins impishly. “Most gay-bashing’s by repressed men.”

Zayn shudders. “Oh, God, please. Anyone but.”

“See, art. People can’t help but want beautiful things.”

“’s cause our Zayner is just so irresistible.” An arm comes around Zayn; he doesn’t have to look to know it’s Louis, like he doesn’t have to look to know the other boys are coming up around him. “Right, Liam?” Louis asks. And Zayn knows it’s just because he was the first of the boys Louis caught sight of, but still. Ouch.

Liam smiles at him, soft and a little wary. “Clearly,” he agrees.

“’s cause he’s so pretty,” Harry agrees as well, wrapping an arm around Zayn’s neck and hooking his chin over his shoulder. Zayn wonders, sometimes, if Harry isn’t getting in deeper than he should, with all the casual touches like this, the sort of proprietary touches that usually only happen in a –well, an actual relationship. But Harry does this with the other boys too, sometimes. Maybe not quite as much. And he’s done his best to be honest with Harry. Maybe it’s another thing he cannot change, whatever it is.

“Prettier than me?” Louis scoffs, puts a hand on his heart.

Liam pats him on the shoulder. “No one’s prettier than you, Tommo.”

“Blatant lies,” Zayn retorts. He probably shouldn’t, but—he doesn’t like Liam complimenting other blokes. It’s stupid and it’s ugly and he doesn’t have any claim over him, but there it is.

“You’re both very pretty,” Perrie inserts, grinning at them all like they’re an amusing TV show.

“Who’s finding Zayn irresistible?” Niall asks. It takes Zayn a second to backtrack, to remember, then,

“Anderson,” he explains, “Perrie has a theory he’s repressing his lust for me and that’s why he likes to shove me around.”

As one, four faces darken. “Did he—” Niall starts, but Zayn shakes his head.

“Nah, just yelled something about burkhas at me. And, like, I don’t really think he’s done his research—”

“Not the point,” Liam cuts him off. His voice is nearly a growl. “You’re okay?”

Zayn nearly rolls his eyes. “Didn’t even come near me, Perrie can vouch for it. ‘m fine.”

Liam actually looks to Perrie for confirmation, who nods with her lips pressed together like she’s trying not to laugh. Zayn makes a long-suffering face at her; she twitches.

“Fine.” Liam still looks unconvinced, and he’s not very subtle as he eyes Zayn, clearly trying to check him for injuries. Zayn tells himself very firmly that it’s only to check him for injuries, anyway, and not to shiver when Harry’s pressed against him and could feel.

Instead, he does roll his eyes, and reaches out to grab Liam’s arm. “Li,” he says, “I’m fine. I can deal with it. You don’t have to defend me.”

“I—” Liam stops, swallows, starts again. “You shouldn’t have to deal with it,” he says then, fierce and strong, and Zayn smiles helplessly at it, at the good in him, at the parts of him he fell so madly for on that faraway beach with the sun in his hair and Liam coaxing a little girl back to happiness with an ice cream cone. Even if it’s stupid, and idealistic, and _what does he know anyway_ , a small, nasty part of Zayn whispers, _the one who left you_ , there’s still a nobility to it that Zayn can’t help but love. That wants to protect him not because he’s a friend, because he was—well, him—but because it was wrong.

“Don’t be stupid,” he starts to retort, but then Harry stiffens behind him.

“Oh,” he breathes in Zayn’s ear, like a lightbulb is coming on. Then, louder, and more like someone hit him, “ _Oh_ …”

Zayn turns his head to look, but then all at once Harry’s let him go, yanked him away from Louis to spin him around, and pulled him back into him. His tongue’s down his throat and Harry’s got his face cradled between his hands, and he’s kissing him like it’s all he could so, like he’s pouring something into it.

Zayn melts, because Harry’s a damn good kisser, but then he catches sight of Perrie’s surprised face and Louis’s smirk and Niall exaggerated distaste and something on Liam that looks utterly blank, so he slides his hands down to Harry’s hips and pushes him gently away. “Haz?”

Harry’s eyes are so, so sad, like his heart’s been broken, and he takes a second’s breath before he’s pushing kisses into Zayn’s jaw, his neck, breathing something that sounds like, “I’m sorry,” over and over again into his skin.

“Irresistible,” Perrie echoes, sounding a little breathless. Then, “Shit, but that’s hot.”

“Keep your lewd fantasies to yourself, Edwards,” Louis retorts. When Harry shows no sign of stopping, though, he adds, a little worriedly, “Hazza?”

Harry pulls back, still with that tragic look on his face. “Him,” he says, choked like he’s trying not to cry, and Zayn knows. He doesn’t know what gave him away, but he knows. Harry’s figured it out.

“Zayn,” Harry breathes, still caught between sad and amazed, and Zayn forces out a chuckle beneath the internal monologue of _shit shit shit shit_.

“Clearly need to get this one home, yeah?” he says. He probably looks a little manic, one hand threaded through Harry’s curls, eyes vaguely panicked, but Niall—good, reliable Niall—just laughs.

“Yer just in a hurry to get off,” he says, “C’mon, Haz, can’t you do that somewhere less traumatizing for the rest of us?”

“No, no,” Perrie waves a hand. She looks vaguely dazed. “Please. Continue.”

“You’re twisted,” Louis tells her, admiring. “But Niall’s right. No one wants to get expelled, right, boys?”

“Speak for yourself,” Harry says, but he moves away enough that Zayn isn’t pressed too tightly against him to move.

“Good. So let’s go.” Liam’s face is studiously blank, a hint of a pleasant smile on it. He probably wants to stop the scene.

“Yeah,” Harry agrees, a little sharply, and they go. Harry stays close to him as they make their way to the car, then climbs nearly on top of him. Zayn’s not entirely sure what to think. On the one hand, he’s desperately afraid Harry’s going to blurt something out, something that’ll ruin everything, that’ll make Liam really hate him instead of just not love him. On the other hand, Harry’s got his hand high on Zayn’s thigh, stroking at the inseam of his jeans, and he’s still nuzzling into Zayn’s neck, and if Zayn closes his eyes so he can’t see Liam’s white knuckles it’s really, really hot.

No one talks much on the ride home. Niall and Louis try their best, and whenever Zayn has a spare thought he tries too, but Harry’s not paying any attention and Liam’s doing something Zayn would call sulking if it wasn’t, well, Liam.

The instant they hit Harry’s house, Harry’s hand closes over Zayn’s wrist and he tugs him upstairs like an enthusiastic puppy. Zayn’s too caught between turned on and terrified to do anything more than wave at the other lads as he goes. Liam’s face is still expressionless.

Harry shoves Zayn into his bed the instant they get there. Zayn lets himself fall, still a little wary. Harry doesn’t get pushy in bed; whiney, needy, squirmy, yeah, but Zayn’s usually the one pushing. He’d forgotten just how much he likes this feeling, of letting someone else take control.

“Zayn,” Harry says again. When Zayn meets his eyes, they still look so, so sad, so tragic. “Oh, _Zayn_.” Then he’s on his knees, fingers undoing Zayn’s zip and yanking his jeans and pants away so his cock springs loose. Zayn’s decided on turned on, yeah, turned on’s the way to go when Harry’s stroking him with those long, clever fingers, looking like it’s the only thing in the world that matters right then, bringing him off.

He does, swallowing him down to the base, letting Zayn’s hips jerk into him as he sucks and strokes and sucks some more, Zayn’s fingers tangled in his hair, until Zayn comes in a breathless cry and a flop backwards.

Harry climbs onto the bed after him, cuddles into his side. Zayn tries to think, tries to pull his brain together after Harry sucked it out of him. He reaches over, down, because that’s just manners—but Harry knocks his hand away.

“Not the point.”

“Huh?” Zayn’s almost certain he had a brain, at some point.

“Point was to make you happy,” Harry insists, but he sounds more subdued than usual.

That brings Zayn up short, makes him stiffen. “If that was a pity—”

“Wasn’t pity.” Harry shakes his head against Zayn’s cheek. “It was an apology. I’m sorry for bringing you back into this.”

“Haz—”

“No, if I hadn’t brought you into our group, you wouldn’t have to see him every day, and you wouldn’t still be pining.”

“I would have seen him eventually, it’s not that big a school.”

“But—how do you do it? “s that why you’re so broody all the time?”

“No, that comes naturally.” Zayn pets at Harry’s hair to calm him down, because his breathing is coming fast enough he’s a little worried he’ll hyperventilate. “You know you can’t say anything, right?”

“But it’s not right,” Harry insists. Then, and Zayn can feel his eyes widen in horror. “It’s not me, is it? I’m not in between you two? Because I’ll—”

“He’s not out, Haz.” Zayn sighs, but there’s a part of him that’s grateful, so, so grateful that he can finally talk about this. “You’ve got nothing to do with that.”

“And why isn’t he? Did he think we would be dicks about it?”

Zayn shrugs. That’s definitely not his to tell. “Dunno. But he’s not, and that’s that.”

“So why haven’t you done something?”

“’s not my place, is it?”

“Zayn.” Harry rolls over, so he can look Zayn in the eye. “If it’s anyone’s place, it’s yours.”

“It’s his,” Zayn corrects. “So leave it. Please.”

“But he’s _hurting_ you,” Harry says, and he sounds almost fierce.

“I’ll live.”

“You could be happy, though.”

“’s not just—he doesn’t want me, Haz.” It hurts to say it, but it’s just another thing he can’t change. And maybe it’ll be a good hurt, actually saying it, actually putting it into words. “Or, no, he wants me—but not like I want him. ‘s okay. Nobody’s fault.”

Harry makes a sound that’s half snort, and half-snuffle.

“You won’t tell?” Zayn asks again. Because he has a feeling Harry’s been friends with Louis for too long not to be planning something. Especially being the hopeless romantic he is.

“No,” Harry says, drawing the word out reluctantly. “But you should.”

Zayn sighs again, and pushes Harry off of him so they can join the others downstairs.

\---

Zayn draws Harry that night. He’s easy to pose—in bed, obviously, his arms crossed over his chest, his shirt gaping open at the chest so that the necklace settles into the hollow of his throat, hair falling messy into his face. A grin about to break on those ridiculously red lips. Zayn lingers on those lips, trying to catch the lushness of them, the way they give and take when he kisses them, the smoothness of them against his skin, then goes on to the curve of his cheeky smile, the muscles of his arms, his shoulders, all the things Zayn’s traced with fingers and tongue and eyes. Harry, who was the first to welcome him, who gives and gives and gives all his love and will keep giving until he’s got nothing less. Whose smile, whose ease invites all that love back a thousand times, so he doesn’t understand what it’s like to _want_ so badly and not be wanted in return. He puts that in the confident tilt of his chin, the open way his body falls, like he’s always ready to pull Zayn into it. A refuge for when Zayn can’t help but feel too much. A steady belief in Zayn when Zayn refuses to believe him himself.

God, Zayn wishes he could love him, thinks how easy it could have been, until they both tried to give and take everything at once and it all exploded. Or maybe it wouldn’t have; maybe Harry would have learned when not to push and when to have thicker skin, and Zayn would have learned not to be jealous of how everyone loves him, how to trust that his kisses are for him. Maybe if they had had a chance. But he can’t learn that, not now, and he tries to make up for it with each line he draws, tries to put all the love that could have been in the smoothness of his skin and the edges of his smile.

Zayn traces one of those lines, the corner of his dimple, thinks of the way he glows with his happiness, how he just wants Zayn to have that too, and sighs as he puts the sketchbook away.

\---

“So,” Louis says, dodging Zayn’s thrust, “I was talking to Perrie.”

“Finally given up on Eleanor?” Zayn executes a duck and roll maneuver that would make Jack Sparrow cry, though he’s not sure they’d be tears of joy, and comes up on the other side of Louis’s swing.

“Never!” Their broom handles clash with a thunk. “What do you take me for?”

“A fickle, fickle man,” Zayn retorts, and Louis sticks out his tongue.

They’re alone in Harry’s basement. Niall had wanted to listen to some new CD Harry had gotten, and Harry had pulled Liam along with them—literally. It’s sweet, in a way, how Harry’s turned protective now he knows—cuddling up to Zayn whenever Liam gets too close, glaring whenever Liam talks about secrets, refusing to leave the two of them in the same room without him. He’s not being mean to Liam, Zayn’s glad, because it’s not Liam’s fault and he never meant to disturb their friendship, but he’s definitely keeping them apart. Liam’s getting confused, Zayn knows, can see the worried, pained looks he shoots at Harry after Harry snatches Zayn away. He should probably tell Liam that Harry’s in on the secret, Zayn knows. But—he doesn’t. Talking about it feels like it would disrupt whatever equilibrium he’s found.

So then it was Louis and Zayn alone in the basement, and they’d been poking in the corners, and Zayn had unearthed two brooms, so clearly an epic swordfight to the death was the only answer.

“Anyway,” Louis says, drawing out the word long enough to swipe at Zayn’s feet and for him to dance away, “Perrie asked if I was taking El to your show.”

“Oh?” Zayn blocks Louis’s next strike and jumps onto the coffee table. It wobbles—they both pause to watch—but holds, so Zayn thwacks at Louis’s shoulder.

“So there I was, having to pretend I knew what I was talking about, as she’s chatting about how great it’d be to see everyone’s work and how proud we’d be of you and how great an artist you are and how there’s a lot of important people at the show and a lot of food. At this show. Which your class is having.” Louis stabs at Zayn’s chest. “Which you haven’t said anything about.”

Zayn jerks back, and nearly falls off the other end of the table. “I was going to.”

“When?” Pressing his advantage, Louis leaps onto the table as well.

“Soon.” Zayn knows, has known, the boys would want to come. Knows they would even if they didn’t want to, if he asked. But—he doesn’t like shows. That’s his heart, in those drawings, on the easels. And it’s one thing for strangers to see it, who don’t know how to put it together. Another for these lads who are becoming family fast enough to scare him.

“Really?” Louis raises his eyebrows and brandishes his broom, looking just shy enough of rakish to tip into insane. “I think you’re lying.” Their brooms clank together, then apart again.

“Am not.”

“Are too. You’d not have said anything. It’s what you do. And it’s bullshit.”

“I say things. The important things, at least.” Zayn jumps over Louis’s thrust at his feet, then gets in a solid hit on his back. Louis swears and retaliates, connecting soundly with his ribs.

“You say everything but the important things. And it’s whatever, not like I care that you don’t love us enough to share, but Haz gets sad when you’re sad, and Liam makes his broken face, so you know, you could tell us shit.” Louis spins to avoid Zayn’s thrust, almost overbalances off the table, catches himself. “Invite us you your show, even. Least we could do is be there so people can see how impossible it is to capture us on paper.”

He preens a little at the words, and Zayn strikes. He raises his broom to deliver the final blow—and the table makes an ominous creaking noise. They freeze, the broom still held above Zayn’s head. Their eyes meet. Then the table groans again and collapses, sending them crashing to the ground.

“Fuck!”

“Bloody hell!”  


“You okay down there?” Liam yells from upstairs.

Their eyes meet again. Zayn’s still not entirely sure he’s whole, but, “If we run we can probably be on a bus before they notice,” he suggests.

“Peachy keen!” Louis yells back. Then, to Zayn, “Good man.” He levers himself back up to sitting, winces, and puts a hand to his back. “If I can move, fucking hell.”

Zayn grimaces as he gets to his feet, but years of being beat up are good for learning how to deal with pain, at least. He holds out a hand for Louis, who takes it and lets Zayn pull him to his feet. Leaning on each other, they hobble up the stairs.

“So,” Zayn asks, as they get outside and Louis manages to straighten and start moving under his own power, if not very fast or quietly, “Will you come?”

“Dunno.” Louis’s grin flashes, sharp-edged. “Think I’m busy that day.” And Zayn grins back, because he knows what that means. He doesn’t think he’d mind, Louis seeing what his heart looks like on paper.

Behind them there’s the faint sounds of a shout.

“Shit,” Louis swears, and as one they bolt towards the road, laughter interspersed with pained swearing pounding through their ears.

\---

It’s not a bad-mood day when he wakes up. But by lunch time, he’s crabby enough that Louis gives him a worried look and scoots away from him, and Harry gives him an equally worried look and leans in as Zayn throws himself down at the table.

“Bad day, Zaynie?”

“Leave it, Haz.” As retorts go, it’s not brilliant. Zayn gives no fucks.

“Definitely a bad day,” Niall agrees.

“He was fine this morning,” Harry points out, to Niall rather than Zayn. His eyes flick nervously to Liam, but Zayn shakes his head, harshly. God. That’d be all he needs, Harry saying something about Liam.

“So something must have happened between then and now.” Louis’s obviously getting off on the whole Sherlock Holmes thing. “Niall. What classes has he had?”

“Maths, art, and a free,” Niall answers promptly. Louis blinks.

“Did not actually think you’d know that, mate. That’s kind of creepy.”

Niall shrugs, unconcerned. Zayn snorts, and fusses with a piece of something he thinks once was bread, many years ago.

“Anyway. Something happened in those three periods to make Zayn into grumpy Zayn. Ideas?”

“Wasn’t math, Zayn’s not awake for first period,” Harry volunteers.

Louis stabs a finger in his direction. “There is a man with thoughts.”

“I am right here,” Zayn growls. Usually, this is amusing. Right now, it’s really fucking irritating. He doesn’t want them to figure it out. Doesn’t want them to know that he’d spent the last two periods staring at a blank piece of paper trying to figure out how to put Liam onto it in a way that does him justice. He just—doesn’t.

“Shush, Zayn, we’re thinking here.”

“Fuck you, Louis, I—”

“Hey.” Liam’s hand glides over the back of his neck, bringing coolness with it, somehow. His eyes are soft and understanding as he turns Zayn’s head to look at him. “Have a listen?” He holds out one of his earbuds.

Zayn takes it more because he’s incapable of not doing what Liam asks than anything else, sticks it in his ear with a muttered “thanks.” Then he hears the song that’s playing, and he can’t help but smile. “Li…”

Liam blushes, shrugs. “I like it.” Like Zayn hadn’t forced him to listen to it this summer, pinning him in place and holding the earbuds in until the song was finished, when Liam twisted him and rolled them over and pressed kisses to his jaw to the sound of it replaying over and over again.

Even the memory of it helps. He could draw Liam like that, he guesses, earbuds in and eyes closed, a bit of a smirk up at the viewer as if he knows they like what they see. But that’s not all of him, not even the tiniest fraction. It’s not _enough_.

Still, the music helps. Liam’s hand on his shoulder helps. Closing his eyes so those are the only two points of contact he has helps even more. Deep breaths to the beat, in and out. What he cannot change. He’ll never be able to get Liam right, to do him the justice he should get out of a drawing. But he can brood over it some more, turn it over in his head and let the lack of perfection annoy him, or he can find the next best thing, the best he can do—

“Oh, look! Payno got Zayn to smile!” Zayn’s eyes jerk open. Louis’s grinning, nearly smirking. “Do we need a hand check, boys?”

“Louis!” Harry snaps, and makes concerned eyes at them. But Zayn’s still looking at Liam, hadn’t had time to look away, and he’s paler than usual and his grip loosens on Zayn’s skin. But his voice is even as he retorts, “Don’t be silly, Tommo.”

Zayn rips the earbud out, drops it onto the table, and stands up abruptly enough that his chair nearly topples over. “I’m going to class,” he snaps, and stalks off. He’s at the door before he realizes he left his bag behind. But who the fuck cares. Maybe Harry’ll bring it to him, or Louis’ll bring it to Chem later. If he even goes.

He’ll go, he knows. It’s better to sit in class and be bored and angry than to skip and just be angry. Angry at Liam for knowing what he needs so damn well. Angry at himself for forgetting, even for an instant, that knowing doesn’t mean wanting, and wanting doesn’t mean loving. Angry at Louis for being a shithead, at Niall for not stepping in. At Harry for wanting him to be happy, rather than knowing what he needed, for not being perfect enough to erase Liam from his heart. Angry at Liam for being too hard to erase.

Nothing he can change, in there. Nothing. Everything’s set in its path, and none of it’s under his control. Just more things to swallow down, to not regret, to take as they fucking come.

He’s so busy trying to make himself accept that he hits a hard body and bounces off.

“Sorry,” he mutters, not looking up, and keeps going.

He hits the same barrier, and looks up into Anderson’s leering face.

“Going somewhere?”

“Are you going to move?” Zayn asks through gritted teeth. This is the last thing he wants to deal with right now.

“Not for a cock-sucking terrorist.”

“Fuck off, man. Just let me by.” He knows it’s a bad idea before he says it. He doesn’t care. Doesn’t care there are people lining the halls, eyeing them warily. Doesn’t care that something mean and little glints in Anderson’s eyes. Doesn’t care, period.

“What did you say?” Anderson hisses, “Did you tell me to fuck off?” He takes a step forward, so Zayn has to step back or be run over. “You? You don’t talk to me like that.”

Zayn takes a breath, looks up into those little, deep-set eyes. The fleshy features, the stupid jaw. The stupid everything, really. Accept that which you cannot change, he repeats to himself.

He is so damned tired of accepting.

“What the hell is your problem?” he says, and shoves Anderson back. “You’ve been after me for months. What the fuck did I ever do to you? Are you jealous that I can do more than punch people? That I’m actually different from everyone else? I can teach you how to look as good as me, you know, if you asked. ” A part of Zayn almost wishes Louis were here to see this, to see another way they were the same, the way they knew how to be cruel. Wishes Niall were here to defuse things with a laugh. Wishes Harry were here to charm him out of this. Wishes Liam were here. But they aren’t, none of them, so, “Your girl like my tattoos? She realize I’m prettier than you? Or do you think putting me down will make your social standing go up more? Because trust me, mate,” Zayn drawls, and the crowd laughs, “no one’s fighting you on the gorilla spot.”

Anderson’s face is crimson, and there’s a wildness in his eyes that Zayn’s almost worried about, even in this crowd. Then he opens his mouth to roar, and his fist draws back like a heavy pendulum, and Zayn knows it’s coming and can’t even bring himself to care.

“Why you little piece of fucking faggot paki scum I don’t know why she even likes—” his fist slams down. It hits Zayn’s ribs like a battering ram, and he doubles over with the pain of it. It’s been a while since he let it get this far, since he forgot how not to provoke people. He manages to twist so that the next punch comes at him from a different angle, though not enough that it misses his ribs again, then there’s another, but he manages to move so the next one misses, making Anderson lurch forward, off-balance and lumbering, which only makes his face burn redder, and—

“Zayn!” Zayn gets a glance of wide, terrified brown eyes before he folds back up with yet another blow, one that knocks all the air out of him with the bruising pain of it. Of course, Liam’s here, to see the joys of being around Zayn.

“You know,” Zayn wheezes out. He will not let this fucking racist homophobe skinhead take him out without a fight, even if he’s hopelessly outmatched physically and can only talk. He’s not going to be shut up. He has that left. “I would say there were easier ways for you to get your hands on me if you’re so desperate, but holy fuck not in a million years.”

Anderson roars again, something feral in it, and Zayn braces for another blow, turning so it might hit him somewhere other than ribs that feel well-bruised already.

And then Liam’s in front of him, blocking him as much with his presence as with his body, and the blow doesn’t fall. “Stop it!”

“Get the fuck out of my way, Payne, or I will—”

“Leave him alone.” Zayn can only see Liam’s back, but he knows his muscles well enough to know they’re flexing. “Or I’ll make you.” Calm, not as much a threat as a promise. If Zayn’s ribs weren’t screaming at him, if he wasn’t halfway to panicking and halfway to yelling at himself, he’d probably be intensely turned on.

Zayn can see the indecision in Anderson’s face, but eventually Liam’s bulk, and probably the fact that people will step in to defend him, overwhelms his anger, and he settles back, though his face is still flushed with the rage. “Defending him, Payne? Should have known. All you fags stick together.”

Liam pauses. It’s a split-second thing, one probably no one else noticed, but Zayn knows every line of Liam’s body, has dreamed about each centimeter of it, and he sees the moment. Then he sees the decision, that look of a knight setting off to battle not because he wants to but because he has to, and Zayn barely has time to think _oh babe no_ before Liam says loudly, evenly, “Yes we do. So remember that next time you’re trying to beat one of us up.”

He glares at Anderson for a moment, ignoring the silence that falls, then the murmurs that start ricocheting through the crowd, the ‘is he?’ and ‘did he just say?’ and ‘oh my god’.

Then he turns his back on Anderson with all the scorn of Louis on a bad day, and wraps a hand around Zayn’s arm. “Come on, Zayn,” he says, pitched to carry. “Let’s get you to the nurse,” and as good as drags Zayn away, his grip hard enough to hurt.

\---

“Liam.” Liam doesn’t let go, just keeps pulling at Zayn, and Zayn’s ribs are hurting enough that he’s seeing stars with every step and he can’t keep going this fast. “ _Liam_.” It doesn’t help. His legs are shorter than Liam’s and he’s not in as good shape to begin with and fuck he feels like he’s going to crack in half and he’s not breathing, “Babe, you’ve got to stop for a second, I can’t—”

Something finally gets through to him, because Liam stops on a dime, so Zayn nearly stumbles into him. “Oh, shit, I didn’t think—are you okay?” And of course Liam would sound apologetic, now of all times. Zayn can’t even keep in the fond snort, despite the fact that no, he’s fucking not okay.

It dies in his throat as Liam turns and he can see how pale he is, the panicked look in his eyes, the way he’s chewing his lip to pieces.

“Yeah, babe, I’m fine,” he lies. He doesn’t—he’s not good at this. The comforting. “We don’t have to go to the nurse, we can leave or—”

“No, we should, he got in some good hits, you’re hurt.” Liam nods, swallows, and starts walking again, if slower this time. His grip on Zayn’s loosened somewhat, but Zayn still trots next to him, biting his own lip against the pain of each jarring step. He thinks that planning this, taking care of him, might be what’s keeping Liam together, so he can let him do that even though he just wants to go home and try to forget how stupid he’d been.

But what’s he supposed to say? Liam, you were magnificent? I’m sorry I forced you into that? I kind of wanted to jump you, to kiss away all that fear until only that beautiful bravery was left?

“Li,” he says instead, because he doesn’t know how to say all that, “You didn’t have—I didn’t want to force you—”

“You didn’t,” Liam snaps back. Zayn falters in the face of that tone, the closest to anger he’s ever really seen. Of course Liam’s mad at him. If he hadn’t been stupid enough to provoke Anderson, Liam wouldn’t have had to defend him…

Liam must hear, feel, something, because he takes a breath, then, more calmly, “You didn’t, okay? That wasn’t for you. Or, it was, but—” He sighs, stops walking to collapse back against the lockers. Class must have started sometime as they walked, because they’re the only ones in the hall. “You didn’t make me. I—it wasn’t _right_ ,” he says, suddenly fierce again. Zayn’s shining white knight. “He was hurting you and it wasn’t right and it wasn’t fair.”

“Not a lot is.”

Liam waves away Zayn’s attempt at flippancy. Apparently that’s not the comfort he needs. “It wasn’t fair that you were alone.”

“I wasn’t—”

“I’m not usually a coward. I don’t like that I was.”

That, Zayn can understand. “Then, thanks.”

“Should have done it a long time ago.” Liam gives him a look Zayn can’t read, wary and sad and hopeful all in one. “Should have done it when I saw you were here.”

It’s—Zayn’s not sure what that means. “Babe, I didn’t…”

“I know.” And what does he know, Zayn wonders, when he’s not sure how he was going to finish that sentence?

But he doesn’t have much time to wonder before Liam’s head thunks back against the lockers, the look gone. Zayn can feel him shaking through the hand he still has on Zayn, and knows the shock has just hit. “Fuck. Bloody fucking hell.”

This, too, Zayn understands. And he’s not good at the comforting thing, but Liam somehow looks so fragile right then, so unsure and so scared, that Zayn has to try rather than let Liam look like that anymore.

So he takes a step forward, leans into Liam so that their foreheads touch, so that he can show his support with his body even if he doesn’t know how to say it, because he’s always been better at that. “Hey. Babe. It’ll be okay, promise.” He hopes he’s telling the truth. “It’s not like it was, okay? You can beat up anyone who tries anything now. Or we’ll sic Louis on them, that’d be even worse, I’m sure Louis and me together could come up with something really mean. Or we’ll make Harry make his sad face at them until they start to cry.”

He doesn’t know if it’s helping, can still feel Liam shaking against him, but it doesn’t seem to be hurting, so he keeps rambling, even as each breath makes his side burn. He’s not sure he’s said this much in years. “’m so proud of you, you know? That was brilliant, there, like a proper superhero. ‘cept I’m not Gwen Stacey, right, that’d be bad. Maybe I’ll be a kickass Lois Lane. Or, no, you’re Batman, I could totally be Catwoman if I wanted, then I’d get to save you sometimes too. But it was sick, yeah? And it’s going to be good, it will, maybe not right away but trust me, it’s easier not to hide, it can be like—” not this summer, Liam doesn’t want that, but, “—like, I don’t know, some good time, and even if it isn’t uni’s right around the corner and the lads are always there, they are, even if they didn’t know either, and—” Liam takes a long, shuddering breath, then Zayn feels him moving and takes a step back. “Better?”

Liam’s lips curve. It’s not quite his crinkly-eyed smile, but it’s something, and at least the panic’s receded. “Yeah.” He straightens and lets go of Zayn’s wrist. Zayn resists the urge to cover that space with his own hand, try to absorb the feel of it. “Now let’s get you to the nurse’s.”

Zayn had forgotten about the pain in trying to make Liam feel better, but, “Li—”

“Come on,” Liam says, firm again, and Zayn rolls his eyes but obeys.

\---

The lads tumble into the nurse’s room about ten minutes later, after the nurse, a big, cheery woman who always reminds Zayn of Madame Pomfrey , confirmed he hadn’t broken his ribs, just maybe bruised them. She did keep him, though, just in case, and Liam stayed because it became clear she couldn’t make him leave the spot on the table beside Zayn.

“Zayn!” Harry cries as soon as he sees him, and gallops across the room to throw himself onto Zayn. The impact makes Zayn wince, but he doesn’t care, because Harry’s wrapped his arms around his waist and sounds halfway to crying. “Are you okay?” he asks, faster than normal. “We heard that you got into a fight and got carried away on a stretcher and—”

“’m fine, Haz,” Zayn chuckles, then winces again as the movement jars his ribs. Still, he runs a hand over Harry’s hair, lets him nuzzle into his chest. Then Zayn’s rocked backwards again by another body hitting him, and Niall’s arms go around both of them.

“Was worried about you, mate,” he says into Zayn’s shoulder, and Zayn can’t help but grin sappily at both of them.

Liam, though, is giving them—and Louis, who’s hovering just inside the door, oddly quiet—a confused look. “Shouldn’t you be in class?”

Louis snorts and waves his hand, like that’s mere semantics. “Zayn wasn’t near his history class when I went to give him his bag, and people were talking about a fight and some dumbass who had stood up to Anderson and gotten the shit kicked out of him, so I got the lads and came down.” And only Louis, Zayn thinks, would say it like that, like extricating all of them from class was nothing, and that obviously they would come check on Zayn.

“Oh. Well.” Liam’s clearly not happy about it, but there’s nothing he can really do when Harry’s still half in Zayn’s lap and doesn’t look to be planning to let go anytime soon, even if Niall’s moved off to hop onto the table on Zayn’s other side.

“There are other rumors, too,” Louis goes on. He’s talking slower than usual, drawing out each word, and Zayn feels Liam tense. They both know what’s coming. Zayn just hadn’t thought the news would move this quickly. “About how you mentioned that you were—”

“Zayn, here’s some ice for you—” the nurse pulls up short when she sees they’ve more than doubled. “Oh, boys. Shouldn’t you be in class?”

Harry lifts his head off of Zayn and smiles brilliantly enough Zayn gets hit by the edges of his charm-ray. “Just checking up on our Zayn, here,” he says, and Zayn can actually see the nurse melting under the sheer force of that charm.

“We were worried it was serious,” Niall pipes in, with his best earnest face.

Normally, Zayn thinks, this is where Louis would add some oh-so-reasonable justification, but he’s still staring silently at Liam, so Harry picks up the slack, giving her another lazy smile and asks, in his slow, deep drawl, “Can you give us a minute, please? It’s just—we were really scared. Even if you’ve taken good care of Zayn.”

She manages to flush and coo at the same time. It’s a little disturbing. “Of course.” She hands the ice pack to Liam. “Just make sure he keeps that on those ribs. Not that Mr. Styles isn’t just as medicinal.”

Harry dimples and winks. She makes another face that clearly expresses how adorable she thinks he is, then bustles back into her office.

Zayn rolls his eyes at Harry. “You’re ridiculous, you know?” Harry just grins and rubs his cheek into Zayn’s shoulder.

“Hey, move so he can ice it,” Liam says, suddenly sharp again. Harry moves back instantly, with something that tries to be a smirk at Zayn. Which is…odd. Him moving back so fast. Letting Liam near him again. But he doesn’t say anything as Liam slides the ice against Zayn’s ribs, only the thin cotton of his t-shirt away from his skin so Zayn can feel the touch of Liam’s fingers like fire contrasted against the ice. He swallows, keeps his chin up so he won’t see Liam’s hands pressed against him, solid and strong and tender.

“Anyway,” Louis says, his voice crisp and high. His eyes are a little wide, and they’re fixed on Zayn’s chest. “Can we talk about how Liam apparently came out in front of half the school?”

Liam’s hand jerks. Zayn nudges him with his toe, then rests a hand on his knee, squeezes supportively.

But Niall just heaves a huge, relieved sounding sigh, and grins. “So we don’t have to pretend we don’t know anymore, then?”

Harry reaches around Zayn to hold out a fist for Liam to bump. “Welcome to the dark side. We don’t have cookies, but there’s a lot of hot sex.” Liam bumps his knuckles with the hand not on Zayn, and his mouth is a little slack.

“You really are!” That’s nearly a screech, from Louis.

“Lou!”

“Is that a problem?” Zayn breaks in. He glares at Louis, all the anger he’s never managed to feel for himself bubbling up.

Louis ignores him. “You didn’t tell me? You all knew?”

Niall shrugs. “Guessed, didn’t I? Not really that hard.” Liam makes a squeaking sound, and Niall pats him on the shoulder. “Sorry, mate.”

Louis’s gaze turns to Harry. “I—figured it out too,” Harry says, slowly, his gaze flitting between Liam and Zayn. He really is a shit liar.

“And you?” Louis spits to Zayn, but he’s looking at Liam, “You told him before me? I’ve known you since I was six!”

“I—” Zayn hesitates. He’s not sure what to say. He doesn’t want to outright lie, but—there’s still more that he won’t say without Liam’s permission. He’s not sure he wants Louis to know, wants Niall to. Wants them to be able to pity him, the boy who lost Liam, or never really had him. Harry’s one thing, but them…

But Liam sighs, and pushes a hand back through his hair. “Just tell him.” He’s looking down at his lap, but his hand’s still steady on the ice pack.

“Tell me what—”

“Me ‘n Liam had a—thing, last summer.” A thing. Not the right word, but what was it? Not a fling, he refuses to call it that, but if it was a relationship he’d think he’d have gotten the courtesy of a break up. Liam’s hand shakes, a little. “Before I knew I was coming here.”

Louis stares, for a second. Then he spins on his heel and storms out, slamming the door behind him. Liam flinches with the crash of the door.

“I’ll—” Harry starts, but Liam cuts him off.

“No, I should.” He gives Zayn a long, searching look. “You’ll be okay?”

“Will you?” Zayn counters, and Liam laughs mirthlessly. Zayn lifts up his hand, covers the one still on his middle. “He loves you,” he murmurs, just for Liam, even if the others can hear. “’s just the shock, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Liam takes another deep breath, rolls his shoulders back. His hand slides out from under Zayn’s, then, with a final exhale, he slides off the table and follows Louis out of the room.

All three of them watch the door swing close a second time. Then,

“So that makes more sense,” Niall says.

“Hm?”

“You and Payno.” Like that’s an explanation. But he doesn’t add any more.

Harry, though, throws himself back into Zayn’s lap. “So do I get a goodbye fuck? Or at least a kiss?”

“Goodbye?” He hadn’t done anything wrong, had he? He’d been in a mood, and he’d snapped a little, but he hadn’t said anything—unless, something about the fight, but that didn’t make sense. Or, maybe everyone knowing about Liam… “Why?” he can’t quite keep the panic out of his voice.

“Because Liam’s out, now,” Harry explains, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. He’s almost squirming with glee, his face turned into Zayn’s neck. “So you don’t have to be his secret, and you guys can get back together!”

“Why?” Zayn repeats. He doesn’t—he can’t think about that. It hurts too much.

Harry pulls back so he can look at Zayn, his face confused as a child learning that Santa Claus isn’t real. “Because you’re in love with him,” he says, simply. Because it is that simple for him, this boy whose charm is as good as a magic spell.

“Has to go both ways, doesn’t it?” The ice is too cold, so he sets it behind him, twisting so neither of the boys can see his face when his heart is breaking yet again. “And it doesn’t.”

“Zayn—” Niall, this time, against with the ‘how stupid are you’ tone. It sets something off in Zayn, the harsh, frustrated mood that the fight and everything had distracted him from. So he interrupts Niall,

“No. He dropped me before I even came here, before the secrets were an issue. Just—dropped me. Stopped talking to me all together. It wasn’t even a break up. It’s not reciprocated. And I can live with that. Or I have to. I’ve had a lot of practice at living with things.”

He slides off the table, biting down on the noise he wants to make as his bruises scream at him. “Now who wants to go check if they’ve killed each other?”

“You’re an idiot, but yeah, we probably should.” Niall hops off the table too, slips underneath Zayn’s shoulder so Zayn can lean on him.

Harry’s got a frowny face on, but he presses a kiss to Zayn’s temple anyway. “So I get to keep you a little longer,” he says, as they slowly make their way out of the room, Niall calling out a goodbye to the nurse. He could sound a little happier about it, Zayn thinks grumpily.

\---

That evening, after it’s established that Louis had not killed Liam and wasn’t planning to, and they had all escorted Zayn back to class, then after school back home, each of them glaring at anyone who so much as dared look at Zayn (or Liam, for that matter), Zayn sits down with his sketchpad in front him. Liam, he thinks, ignoring the pain that still throbs every time he moves. Broad shoulders, strong arms. Soft eyes, hard body. Full lips, stubborn jaw. Defending him at all costs, not because it was Zayn but because it was right. So afraid to stand up for himself. That same body, spread beneath him, over him, his in every line and twitch of muscles, trembling as he traced skin with tongue and fingers. Pulling Zayn into him, making Zayn come apart with the way he looked at Zayn like he wanted to devour him, with the softness of his touch like Zayn was fragile, breakable, when he’d already broken as much as he ever would. Fierce in defense, sweet in love and friendship. Hands big enough to pack a punch, but gentler than any other Zayn’s ever known. But hot too, so hot, slamming Zayn against a door, like he couldn’t wait to get his hands on him, like Zayn was all he’d ever need. Solid, though, giving Zayn the solace for his moods and the constant vigilance of his life. Contradictions, Zayn thinks. Always a push and a pull.

He stares at the blank page, unseeing as he remembers the breadth of Liam’s shoulders that afternoon, between him and his attacker. Then, slowly, he pulls the sketchbook towards him, and starts to draw.

\---

“So how’s it going?” Zayn asks, sliding into Liam’s space after school the next day as he stands at his locker. He had been busy during lunch, only stopping by for three minutes to wolf down some food before he had to run to the library to finish his lit essay. There were downsides to drawing all night. And even more when he also wasn’t moving at quite full speed.

Liam looks at him like he’s surprised he’s there, and for an instant Zayn second-guesses his instinct to touch, to cuddle. But then he smiles, and it’s a little thin and strained, but it’s there, and he leans into Zayn like he’s forgotten that’s not something they do anymore. “Fine,” he replies tightly. Then, because it’s Liam, he adds, “A lot of questions and stuff. People asking if it’s true.”

Zayn doesn’t want to ask, but he has to. “What’d you say?”

The shocked face he gets is sincere, and enough of an answer, but it fades quickly into something more resigned. “That it was, of course. I’m not—I wouldn’t.”

“Didn’t think you would. But…” Zayn doesn’t know how to finish that sentence. Still, he smiles at Liam. “Glad you haven’t been beat up.”

“Not yet,” Liam agrees, wryly. Then his eyes widen. “Are you okay? Your ribs—”

“Are fine.” More or less. Still bruised, and when Harry got his shirt off last night he wasn’t precisely happy, but. “Not the worst I’ve had.” Somehow, that only makes Liam look more worried. “It’s fine, Li, it is—”

“Why didn’t you tell me any of that?” Liam asks, suddenly. He’s looking at his locker, but he doesn’t move away from Zayn. “Over the summer.”

“Didn’t come up.” Zayn shrugs the shoulder not tucked under Liam’s arm.

“Don’t, Zayn. It’s important.”

“It really isn’t.” Liam gives him a skeptical look that comes off as more stern than anything. “I won’t let it be,” Zayn clarifies. Which might not be precisely true, or totally honest. But is at the heart of it. He won’t let this be who he is. “It’s just—a thing.”

“A thing,” Liam echoes, and there’s something rough in it, something almost angry. “Right.”

“Li—”

But he’s cut off by another body pressing against his other side. “Are we cuddling now?” Louis asks, slinging an arm easily around Zayn’s waist, low enough that it won’t hurt his ribs.

“Aren’t we always?” Zayn retorts, because he’s grateful that conversation got interrupted, as he had no idea what he was going to say next. Louis grins back.

“Dunno. Now I feel like I should suspect ulterior motives, if there have been secret relationships among us.”

“Never in a million years, Tommo,” Zayn laughs, and shoves Louis off of him. The motion dislodges him from Liam, which is probably a good thing. He has to keep reminding himself that Liam coming out hasn’t actually changed anything. It also makes his ribs send a bolt of pain up his side, but he thinks he hides that pretty well.

“Yeah,” Liam agrees, but he sends Zayn a worried glance that makes Zayn think maybe he didn’t hide it well enough. “It’s obviously Niall I’ve been pining after.”

“Lies, blatant lies, you’d all love a piece of this,” Louis shoots back, but he slides between them to sling an arm over each of their shoulders. “Now come on, Haz is already at the car and he’ll freeze if we don’t hurry up, you know how hard it is for him to keep blood going all the way through those limbs.”

“Never noticed a problem.”

Louis wrinkles his nose at Zayn. “Images, mate, images I did not need.”

“Welcome to the club,” Liam mutters under his breath. Zayn doesn’t think he meant anyone else to hear it, but he still cranes his head over Louis’s and raises an eyebrow in question. He’d thought—well, he’s always been fit, that’s one thing he can rely on. Liam definitely wanted him, at least. He knew that.

But Liam just keeps talking like he hadn’t said anything else. “He’s probably taken off half his clothes already anyway.”

“It’s December, he can’t really—no, it is Harry,” Louis cuts himself off. “Maybe we should hurry.”

But they don’t go very fast, actually, in what Zayn is fairly certain is tacit acknowledgement of his injuries, and everyone is still clothed when they get to the car, even if Niall’s swearing under his breath and Harry’s nose is red beneath his knit scarf. It’s only when they’re all in the car—Zayn sneaking into the front while Louis’s busy poking at Harry, which takes surprisingly long today—that Liam looks at the boys in the seat behind him. “Where are we going?”  


“Harry’s.”

“It’s a weekday.”

“And we’re having a ‘congratulations on coming out’ party.”

Liam looks like he can’t decide if he wants to grin or bang his head against the steering wheel. “No drinking.”

Niall makes a face, but shrugs. “We can do that this weekend well enough.”

“This weekend?”

“Alexa’s thing,” Harry contributes. “It’s sort of a get out all your pre-exam crazy party.” Zayn glances behind him to smirk at Harry. He’s been hearing plenty about Alexa lately. Harry flushes, but he flashes a dimpling grin at him too.

“Yeah, no drinking, whatever,” Louis waves his hand. “But we needed to join together to show our support, and yesterday Zayn had to go lick his wounds—”

“I’m _fine_ —”

“There are bruises, Zayn.”

“Not really, there wasn’t a lot of light—”

“We don’t need to hear about your closet sexcapades,” Louis interrupts them. “Really. Overshare. So, Payno, what do you say?”

Liam’s knuckles are white on the steering wheel, but he nods. “Yeah. But some work, too?”

“If you insist, god,” Louis huffs, but he catches Zayn’s eye in the rearview mirror and smirks. Zayn’s pretty sure this was his plan all along, because they have some chem homework that he’s absolutely sure the only way they’re going to ever get done is if they make Niall tell them what they’re doing.

The work portion of the evening doesn’t last very long, anyway, so by the time the pizza is all devoured even Liam’s given up the ghost. Louis’ curled up on one couch with Harry’s head on his lap, Niall’s sprawled across the floor, Zayn’s got the other couch all to himself because apparently being an invalid is good for some things, and Liam’s propped up against the couch, his head bare inches from Zayn’s knees. Zayn’s fingers are itching for a sketchpad, to catch the light across Louis’s flyaway hair and Harry’s curls, so he’s doodling on a napkin, bits of all the boys.

“So, Liam,” Louis starts, cutting off Harry’s story about…a duck, Zayn thinks. “Are there any boys for you? Someone you’ve had your eye on that your free to go after now?”

“I—”

“I mean,” Louis goes on, “Clearly your type isn’t thick on the ground here—” he gestures at Zayn—“but I’m sure there are other artsy boys around. You know anyone—ow, Hazza, watch your elbows—Zayn?”

Zayn stares at his knees and takes a deep breath, in and out. He wants Liam to be happy. If he’s not the person who can do that, he can live with it. “I could find someone, yeah.”

“No.” It’s Liam’s firm voice, laying down the law. Something thrills in Zayn, like some sort of Pavlovian response. “No,” he says again, softer, more unsure. “I mean, I’m fine. There isn’t—not since—I mean, no.”

“I think that’s a no,” Niall drawls, as Zayn colors in a sun and doesn’t think of the ‘not since’, of him still being the last taste on Liam’s lips.

“We’ll just have to keep looking, then,” Louis says, just as firmly. Harry pokes him. “What?”

“How’s Eleanor?” Zayn asks, to distract him. He can hold up against almost anything, but he can’t plan Liam’s love life for him. That’s worse than all the beatings in the world.

“Good. She’d probably be into matchmaking, really—”

“I definitely know some guys, if you want something casual,” Harry interrupts. Zayn glares as hard as he can. He thought Harry, of all people, would know what this was doing to him, how much it was killing him. But Harry just gives him a lopsided smile, like he does know and is still saying it. Little brat, Zayn thinks, unwillingly fond.

“That’s not really my thing, but thanks.” Despite himself, Zayn’s heart skips a beat. There had been something, then. Not just the sex. But of course that’s true. They’re friends now. They always liked each other.

“Isn’t that everyone’s thing?” Niall asks, which sparks a long, pointless argument, including llamas, bananas, and a frog, and by the time that’s over Liam’s getting antsy about how late it is.

Niall scoots over to help Zayn up before anyone else can, and so he’s the one who catches a glimpse of the napkin. “Really?”

Zayn glances at it. It’s a beach, he thinks, and two figures kissing in front of the sunset. God, he even disgusts himself sometimes.

“Shut up,” Zayn mutters, and stuffs it into his pocket. His angst is his own business.

\---

Zayn always forgets how much he doesn’t mind parties. He hates the idea of them, of alcohol making people quicker to fight, of his own tongue loosening, of him forgetting enough to do something stupid that’ll get talked about, of so many people in one place ready to spark into something dangerous. But the reality of it isn’t that bad. He dislikes people in general, but there are enough specific people around that he doesn’t mind, especially a few beers in when he can feel his smile loosening, his laughter getting freer.

The boys flash in and out, carried by the music and laughter, Harry tugging him into a dance and Niall coopting him into a game of beer pong and Liam wrapping himself around him from behind to whisper something about Louis so Zayn had to get another beer to erase the feel of him and Louis himself grabbing Zayn to use him for his latest scheme to catch El under the mistletoe someone had the brilliant idea to put up, then getting caught beneath the mistletoe himself; by Harry, by Perrie, who he gives a full, movie star dip, by Niall, who dips him in return, by others he barely knows, whose lips are soft or chapped or thin until he doesn’t know the difference.

And it’s great, it is, the unthinking adrenaline rush, the letting go and not deciding all the damn time, but it’s tiring too, especially once Niall and Perrie get sucked into a game of Never Have I Ever and Louis’ ensconced on a couch with El and he’s lost track of Harry and Liam. So he slips out the back door, to the porch.

Alexa’s house overlooks a bit of forest, or a park, or something that’s not civilization. It’s nice, to sit here, with the noise of his friends at his back and the quiet in front of him, the December cold stinging at his cheeks. He digs in his pocket for a cigarette, lights it, and brings it to his lips. The heat of the smoke swirls in his lungs, then out into the air, curling out above the trees, like it’s reaching for the stars.

He breathes, in and out, then shuts his eyes and leans against one of the wooden pillars, his head tilted back so the smoke will go up. He’s not sure how long he sits there, just breathing, letting the tension of the day—the week—his fucking life—out with the smoke. His ribs still twinge a little on each exhale, but he can live with that. It’s what he’s good at.

His cigarette is halfway finished when he hears the door swing open, the sound and heat that rushes out of it before it’s closed again. Zayn doesn’t open his eyes, but he knows who’s there. The footsteps, steady and solid, or maybe the way he breathes, or maybe Zayn can just sense it. Or maybe it’s just a good guess, of who would come looking for him when he disappears.

He takes one more breath, one more easy, peaceful, mostly painless exhale, before he opens his eyes. Liam’s looking—staring, really—at him. Zayn almost smirks. He knows the picture he makes like this, lit by the embers of his cigarette and the shadows from inside.

“Zayn,” Liam breathes. Zayn does grin at that. Good to know he has this, at least. “Zayn,” Liam repeats, a little less hoarse.

“Liam,” he replies. This is what his night needs, he thinks, not even sarcastically. Liam and him in the quiet with the trees in the distance and the moon overhead. It could almost be back at the lake, behind Zayn’s cabin, not touching so none of his sisters would tease, but filled with the knowledge of what would come. He takes another drag, lets Liam’s gaze sink into him, and closes his eyes again.

He can hear Liam shifting his weight from one foot to the other, can almost see his worried look. Zayn lets it last as long as he can take it, then opens his eyes as little as he can and still glare at him. “Enjoying the party?” he asks, pointedly.

“Zayn…”

“That is my name.”

Liam’s got that look again, like he’s doing something he really doesn’t want to do but can’t see a way out of doing it. “Look, you know I—like, I never—you and Harry—I wouldn’t—”

“Li.” Zayn doesn’t want to hear this. He won’t hear it. Just because Liam’s out now doesn’t mean he’s going to be pathetic.

“No, it’s—you’ve got to trust me, okay? I wouldn’t say anything, but you should know—I mean, I’m sure Harry will tell you, but in any case—you need to—”

“What?”

Liam swallows. His eyes are sad, Zayn thinks, but there’s something else in them too. “I’ve got to tell you. I was upstairs, just now, and I—well, I walked in on—I mean, he’s probably really drunk, you shouldn’t be that mad—not that you shouldn’t be mad, you definitely should—but I saw Harry—and Alexa—and they were, well…” he trails off, but there’s no question what he means. His cheeks are bright red. Zayn wonders just what he walked in on, to get him that color. He had never been at all ashamed when it was them, not bashful in the least, from that first kiss to when he was biting at Zayn’s thighs.

“Oh.” He takes a long exhale, letting the smoke haze over the stars. There’s bit of pain, he guesses. Less for jealousy, and more for the fact that if this is more than a hook up he guesses they’ll have to stop. He doesn’t begrudge Harry, certainly, but he’ll miss it. Miss Harry’s easy affection, the playfulness of him, the way he likes to cuddle after, his lips hot against Zayn’s neck. But Harry deserves more than Zayn can give him, so, “Good for him.”

Liam’s still babbling, something about how he must be really drunk, he knows how much Harry adores Zayn, he wouldn’t hurt him, it’ll be okay, but when Zayn talks he cuts himself off with, “What?”

“He’s been talking about her for two weeks. I’m glad he caught her.”

“You heard me, right?” Liam’s eyebrows come together, and he bites at his lower lip for a second. “Harry—you don’t—you shouldn’t—just accept this. You can be mad, he’s cheating—”

“What?” Zayn opens his eyes to give Liam a confused look. Cheating? You can’t cheat in a friends with benefits thing. Only in a relationship. Or something like it. “We aren’t…”

“Aren’t?” Liam’s eyes are wide, his voice strangled, like each word is forcing it’s way out. “But you—”

Zayn shrugs. “We hook up, sometimes, yeah. A lot, even. Never made a secret of that.”

“But he—and you—you guys act—”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Haz is like that with everyone.”

“Not like that.”

“Well, there are fewer physical boundaries, and we both like to cuddle,” Zayn admits. “But that happens. He’s a good friend.”

“But not—you aren’t—he’s not your boyfriend?”

“No.”

“Is there?”

“No.”

Zayn doesn’t even know how to describe the look on Liam’s face. There’s something panicked and something excited and something relieved and something Zayn can’t identify at all, something it almost hurts him to look at. “So you’re okay with this? Not jealous?”

“No.” He doesn’t want to think of what that admission means. Of how it burns to see Liam touching someone else, even the most innocent touches. How over the summer he would lean into Liam if he was talking to any of the other kids for five minutes, wrapping an arm around Liam’s waist and fitting himself beneath his shoulder in a not at all subtle motion of possession. It’d kill him, he thinks, if he felt that way about Harry, but this is how he loves, all out and overwhelming, without room for anyone else.

“Oh.” Zayn could almost laugh at Liam’s flabbergasted face, at the wonder in it. “ _Oh_.”

Zayn does chuckle, then, and stubs out the rest of his cigarette. “If we were in a relationship, I would’ve been glad you told me,” he assures him, then throws an arm over Liam’s shoulders, trying not to notice the smooth muscle beneath his t-shirt. “Come on, lets go see if Niall’s puking yet.”

“Yeah.” A pause then, “Yeah.” Liam’s arm slides around Zayn’s waist, this time, pulls him in close. Zayn very nearly freezes. They haven’t been this close, since—well, since. “Then you need another drink,” he says into Zayn’s ear, so his breath whispers across his cheek, makes him shiver. “You don’t look nearly drunk enough.”

No, Zayn must admit as Liam pulls him in even closer, keeps him that close as he ushers Zayn inside. He isn’t.

\---

And that’s the way it is for the next week. It’s an attack, is what it is, Liam’s sudden and overwhelming attack on him. It’s Liam being everywhere, always a few inches too close to Zayn, whispering in his ear with a hand to his back to hold him close, coming up behind him to rest his chin on Zayn’s shoulder, giving him long, burning looks that Zayn’s a hundred percent sure he’s meant to see, dropping offhand compliments that aren’t so offhand at all, in a low growl that goes straight through Zayn’s spine to his dick. He spends the week strung between intensely turned on and intensely stressed, because on top of _Liam_ he only has two weeks before his show and he’s spending every minute he can in the art room.

Or, he can admit, with Harry. Because Harry lets him bury the heat Liam presses into his skin on his lips, doesn’t mind when Zayn pushes him into a closet after a lunch of Liam’s hand on his thigh, just this side of innocent but so, so not. And then, after, Harry curls into him and lets Zayn stroke his hair and breathe, regroup, until he can face the world without jumping Liam or exploding.

He knows what it is. He’s not stupid. It feels like an attack, but that’s because Liam is a straightforward sort of person. It’s a seduction, pure and simple, and Zayn—can’t. He wants, he wants so much, but he can’t. Not so long as Liam looks at him with heat and determination in his gaze and Zayn can only look back with stars.

Which is why he ends up in Harry’s bed on Thursday, smiling and spent as he twists Harry’s hair between his fingers. Harry makes a happy noise, an exhale into Zayn’s skin, and they just lie there, and it’s so, so easy, easy to forget everything outside these walls, to forget school tomorrow where Liam will probably meet Zayn outside for his lunch time cigarette and let his hand rest purposefully on Zayn’s hip and draw little circles there that are anything but comforting.

But then Harry rolls over, pulling his hair out from Zayn’s hand and propping himself up on one elbow. He looks serious, a little sad, and Zayn—he knows what’s coming before Harry speaks.

“I think we should stop,” Harry says. Zayn closes his eyes for a breath, and before he can agree Harry goes on. “Not that I’m not enjoying it, or anything, but I think you’re using me as a way to hide, and I don’t really mind, but it’s not good for you, and Liam—”

“I know,” Zayn agrees. He does. He knows he hasn’t been fair to Harry throughout this thing, even if Harry’s been okay with it, and especially now when he’s literally just taking out his sexual frustration on him.

“You don’t, though.” Harry presses his lips together, wrinkles his nose. “Like, I’ve seen Liam this past week. How can you not think he’s into you? He’s wooing you, Zayner.”

“He’s seducing me,” Zayn corrects.

“Why does that matter? You could be together!”

“We could.” Zayn sighs, and he sits up too, scooting backwards so he can lean against the headboard. Lying down makes it harder. Makes him more vulnerable, with bruises still fading on his torso, tender enough that Harry had traced them with sad eyes. “But—it’s hard. It’d be hard to love someone who only wants to fuck you.”

Pain flashes across Harry’s face, too fast for him to hide it. “I know,” he admits, ruefully, then drops his face into the pillow before he can say anything else.

Oh. “Oh, Hazza.” Zayn reaches for him, tries to pull him up and into him, because—he had never meant for this. He had tried so hard to avoid it, not to hurt anyone, Harry least of all, beautiful, wonderful, oh-so-affectionate Harry, who Zayn only wants to protect, who had finally convinced Zayn to actually say something about what he felt.

Harry makes a noise into the pillow, then rolls over so his head’s on Zayn’s chest again. “I didn’t lie when I said I wasn’t in love with you. I’m not,” and he says it with such ferocious determination that Zayn has to smile, even as something is cracking in his heart. “But… I might’ve lied when I said I couldn’t be, I’m sorry.”

“Harry…”

“It’s okay.” Harry says it like it’s a fact, like the sheer force of his belief will make it real. “I want you to be happy. I want you and Liam to be happy. It won’t make me sad to see that. But…” he trails off, but Zayn gets it. But they have to stop before that’s not true anymore. Zayn gets it, because he loves like that too, that all-consuming thing, and it’s torture for that to be one-sided. Oh, does he understand. He just hadn’t been smart enough to get out in time.

“Yeah,” Zayn breathes in that quintessentially Harry scent. It’s not like it’s for the last time. They’ll still cuddle, he knows. But it’ll be different. It’ll have to be. “I am sorry.”

“Not your fault. I knew what I was getting into. You told me.” Harry pauses, then, “But maybe you should tell Liam too.”

“I—” Harry makes a warning noise, and Zayn lets out the air of his protest. There’s no use saying how it won’t help. Liam dumped him when he knew, because he had to have seen Zayn’s heart on his sleeve and in his eyes around him, or at least how he kissed him and drew him and told him things he’d never said to anyone else, even if Zayn hadn’t put words to it. He had to at least have known a part of it. So telling him again won’t help. But he’s not going to hurt Harry anymore by saying that. “Yeah. Maybe.”

Harry nestles closer. Zayn’s arm tightens around him. This is goodbye, in a way.

“Just—do you think,” Harry murmurs, softly, like he barely wants to ask, “If things had been different—like, we had met—or Li wasn’t—we would have been good, right?”

“Oh, Haz.” Zayn closes his eyes against the tears, tries to absorb this moment, Harry’s skin against his, the force of their connection, how much they both can love. “We would have fucking blazed.”

\---

They don’t tell anyone. First of all because it’s none of their fucking business, and second of all—well, it’s still a shield, the thought of it, and Zayn’s willing to keep what he can. But it doesn’t help, whether because Harry let something slip or because the boys know him, know them, too well, because lunch is filled with sympathetic looks and awkward pauses from all the boys except Harry, who chats with him like normal, even if he doesn’t press a kiss to his cheek in greeting like he used to. Even Liam’s backed off a little, his gaze more concerned than hot, the touch on his arm more consoling than sensual.

It’s too much, for something that shouldn’t be anything, for something that still stings, a little, because this—this, Zayn thinks, might be something he should regret. Because maybe, if he had been better at getting over things, better at accepting, he could have changed it. So Zayn escapes as soon as he can, muttering something about the art room, but he doesn’t go there, where the faces of all four boys stare at him, Harry with his cheeky, knowing eyes. He goes outside instead, leans against the bike rack with a cigarette in one hand and _Tess of the D’Ubervilles_ in the other. And it’s easy to dive into that story, into another hopeless love and her problematic relationship with sexuality, so when a hand runs up his back and Liam murmurs in his ear, “Whatcha reading?” he nearly jumps out of his skin.

“Hardy,” he replies, trying for even when he’s breathing hard with the shock of it.

“For class?” Liam doesn’t move, just spreads his fingers out over Zayn’s back, calloused fingertips rough under his shirt. It feels like he’s touching all of Zayn, somehow. Zayn’s body doesn’t know whether to freeze out of self-defense or shiver with the arousal of the size of his hand, the warmth of it against the cold winter air, so he just shudders before he can stop it.

“No.”

“’Course not, stupid question. It’s you.” Liam chuckles, and Zayn can feel it against his skin.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Zayn’s impressed by how even his voice is.

“That you’re sexy with your nose in a book,” Liam’s voice is a whisper, low and growly, “Always looking so pulled together, like everything you ever need is in those pages, like you never want to come out. Makes me want to pull you out of it. Think you could keep reading with my lips around your cock?”

“Fuck, Li!” Zayn jerks away, stuttering, his heart a rapid beat, his cock already half hard and no Harry to take it out on. He foresees a lot of cold showers and frantic wanks in his future.

Liam just laughs, wide and happy, even if his pupils are dark with arousal. At least that goes both ways. “Not what I was talking about, but that would work too.”

Zayn has never been so glad he’s not a blusher. Or that he’s had long practice keeping a straight face through anything. “Liam…” It comes out hoarser than he’d like.

“What?” Liam grins innocently. It’s an irritatingly good smile, earnest and sincere. “I just came out to make sure you’re okay.”

“’m fine.” And that’s a lie, Zayn doesn’t say, you are out here to continue this special circle of hell.

“You ran away from lunch.”

Zayn shrugs. “Couldn’t deal with everyone. You know. I like to be alone.”

Liam’s smile fades into a compassion so deep it hurts. “Harry?”

“Harry’s fine.” Zayn wets his lowers lip as he turns the words over in his head. Liam’s gaze flits down, then he brings it determinedly back up. “I just don’t need the pity. ‘s not like it’s a break up.”

“It’s not pity.” Liam says it like he says everything, conviction so firm not even Zayn’s cynical soul can doubt it. “It’s concern, Zed. We just want to make sure you’re okay.”

“Well, I am.”

“Yeah, you always are, aren’t you?” Zayn shoots Liam a look. That hadn’t been concern, or flirtation. There was sadness in that, or maybe bitterness, or regret.

“What—”

Liam smiles again, but it’s a little wry this time, a little less earnest. “Never complain, do you?”

“What’s the point? Nothing I can change.” About his race, his religion. His sexuality, his taste in art and fashion, his preference for harsh lines of ink twisting over his skin. About what he feels about Liam, and what Liam doesn’t feel about him.

“It might make you feel better.” Zayn raises an eyebrow. Liam meets his gaze squarely. “I can take it. I’ve been friends with Louis ‘high maintenance’ Tomlinson since I was five. Nothing you could whine about that’d shock me.”

“I doubt that.” Zayn stubs out his cigarette. It has to be time for class. Or at least he can pretend it is, can stop Liam’s too-alluring combination of attraction and real, friendly concern.

He could tell him. He probably should, with this whole honesty initiative. Could just say, ‘Li, I’m desperately, madly, all-consumingly in love with you, and you only want me, and it’s killing me slowly, because it’d be so easy to let go and give you what you want even if it would just hurt in the long run.’ But Liam would stop, then, probably, scared off. Or, to give him credit, to save Zayn pain. But he’d stop being Zayn’s friend too, would have to. And then the other boys would go with Liam, out of years of loyalty, and Zayn would be alone. Again. Or maybe he wouldn’t, and it’d just be awkward, but—but—

“Nothing to say. Just stressed about the art show, is all. And no Harry to let my frustration out on anymore.”

Liam’s eyes are sad again. “I wish you’d talk to me.”

“Didn’t help last time,” Zayn snaps, and leaves Liam behind on his way to class.

\---

Zayn has never been so grateful for Niall as he is that evening, when he plops down onto the couch next to Harry before anyone even thinks about being awkward. It’s so stupid, though, Zayn thinks, as he sits on the other couch, because he and Harry aren’t even the ones being awkward. If it was just them, then nothing would be different—though maybe Zayn would hold off on the close cuddling for a few days, just in case—but the other boys keep working so hard to keep them comfortable, it gets awkward. Zayn’ll probably say something about it. Once it stops being funny how Louis keeps trying to distract Harry but repetitive poking, until even Harry’s getting annoyed.

And then Liam sits on the couch next to Zayn— _right_ next to Zayn, even though there’s plenty of space for both of them to spread out—and it stops being funny. Everything stops being funny. Especially as he shifts so that their thighs are touching, so Liam’s chin brushes against his shoulder every time Liam turns his head.

“Tonight,” Louis announces, because apparently he doesn’t notice that Zayn is dying, “Is movies and ice cream. Then a sleep over.”

“Tommo—”

“I already check with Anne, Liam, don’t worry.”

“You do know it wasn’t a break up, right Lou?” Zayn asks. Liam’s arm is trapped between their torsos, so his fingers are resting on Zayn’s hipbone.

“Shh, Zayn!” Harry grins, dimpling especially deeply, and he at least knows what’s happening, the little fucker. “We get ice cream!”

“Man has a point,” Niall agrees from the floor. “Tommo, go get it.”

“Come with me, Payno?” Louis asks, and Liam sighs and peels himself away from Zayn, so it feels like there’s a vacuum next to him. His finger trails over Zayn’s shoulder as he goes, lingering as long as it can.

Niall raises an eyebrow. Harry snorts, expressively. Zayn just shrugs and resists the urge to cover his face with a pillow and never look up. “We should probably pick the movie before Louis gets back, yeah?”

“Notting Hill!” Harry cries, successfully distracted, and by the time they’ve compromised on Iron Man 2, Liam and Louis are back, toting three cartons of ice cream and five spoons. Liam keeps one carton and two spoons, and sits right back down next to Zayn, even closer than before, if that was possible.

Zayn glances at the carton in Liam’s lap before he accepts the spoon thrust at him. “Mint chocolate chip?” he says, and it comes out a little breathless. He hasn’t had it since this summer, since—Liam, moving a cone of mint chocolate chip ice cream out of the way to kiss Zayn, so the taste lingered on both their lips.

“Yeah, Li said it was your favorite,” Louis answers, “What are we watching? Not some of Hazza’s rom-com shit, I hope.”

“You love my rom-coms!” Harry protests, to which Louis replies by jumping on him for a tickle war.

Zayn ignores them, tilts his head back so he can look at Liam instead. This—this is just uncool. He can stand the seduction. But bringing in the sweetness as well…Zayn’s only human, is the thing. “Not fair,” Zayn murmurs, hopefully too quiet for anyone to hear.

“It is you favorite, though, innit?” Liam asks, all reason except for the crinkling edges of his eyes. “Cheer you right up.”

“Or something,” Zayn agrees, with a bit of a drawl. Cheer him up by reminding him of the hopefulness of that first kiss, of what he can’t have, of what he thought he had but hadn’t. Brilliant.

“Oi, stop being moody.” Liam says more loudly, and pulls Zayn over with one big hand so he’s draped across Liam’s lap, his head cushioned in his chest, Liam’s arm draped over his shoulders to rest on his waist. “Eat your break-up ice cream.”

“Not a break-up,” Zayn objects, but he digs his spoon into the ice cream carton sharing Liam’s lap with him. He should move, he supposes. It would be healthiest. But—Liam’s going to keep on with this no matter what. At least Zayn’s comfortable now. And can’t see Liam’s face, which makes it easier. And if that’s blatant justification, well—only human. And there are some things about himself he can’t change.

He isn’t surprised, though, when it backfires. Or goes as he expected. When, about half an hour into the movie, as the other boys watch Tony Stark slowly fall to pieces, Liam’s hand slips down to the edge of Zayn’s hip, and he leans forward so he can whisper in Zayn’s ear, low and throaty and too quiet for anyone else to hear.

“Wanted you so badly that day, on the boardwalk. Watching you lick at that ice cream, fucking moan over how good it was, just wanted to make you moan over me.” His fingers rub circles into Zayn’s hip, like he’s tracing the heart. “See your pretty mouth wrapped around me, see if your tongue was as good as it looked.” Zayn bites back the whine that wants to get out, focuses on the movie. Liam’ll get tired of this, he tells himself, if he just endures until he finds someone else he wants to fuck. Then Zayn can go back to learning how not to regret in peace.

“I wanted that since I first saw you,” Liam goes on, and his hand is sliding forward, more over Zayn’s thigh now, “lying on that beach with your tongue between your lips, so put together and brilliant and fucking gorgeous. Wanted to take you apart, to watch you fall apart because of me, fuck into you until you were sweaty and panting and begging me—”

Liam’s fingers brush over Zayn’s dick, and in the flash of arousal he yelps and jolts to his feet. “Bathroom,” he announces to the other boys, and runs.

In the bathroom, he leans over the sink, splashes cold water on his face before looking into the mirror. He looks taken apart already, flushed, his hair falling out of its gel. How is he supposed to stand against this? Against Liam’s voice in his ear, whispering dirty things, against his body and his mouth and his sweetness?

Maybe he should just give in. Let Liam get the novelty of being out out of his system on Zayn. Just give in. It might as well be him Liam fucks as anyone else. At least he knows what Liam likes, can make it good for him, can get something in return.

Zayn meets his own eyes in the mirror. No. He’s spent his whole life not giving in. He doesn’t fight, he isn’t Liam who will fight and act and intercede, but he will not fucking give in. Not to bullies who want to hurt him. Not to Liam, who will hurt him even if he doesn’t want to. Not ever.

So he takes a few deep breaths to ground himself, slicks back his hair, and goes back to the living room. He sits down next to Liam, rather then on the other end of the couch, leans back against the cushions, and doesn’t react when Liam’s foot starts brushing up his calf, and doesn’t meet Harry’s eyes.

Zayn topples into sleep around when Tony Stark’s house crashes into ruin and despair. It’s something Zayn gets, a little, he thinks vaguely as his eyes drift closed, that feeling of everything coming apart and nothing you can do to change it.

He wakes up, a tiny bit, when the movie shuts off. His head is resting on someone’s thigh, and there are fingers running through his hair, a motion Zayn’s tired brain interprets as tender.

“Do you know what you’re doing with him?” Louis asks, quietly.

One of the fingers moves from Zayn’s hair to run over his cheeks, dislodging his eyelashes a little. “It’s the only way, Lou,” Liam replies from over him. The sleepiness in Zayn means he’s allowed to pretend, or to forget, or to remember, that it means something.   


“It’s not real.”

“I can build from that. I can’t do it again, Tommo.” Liam sounds wrecked. Zayn rubs his head back into him, to make him feel better. His hand starts to move over Zayn’s head again, gentle and relaxing, like he’s taking care of Zayn and everything’ll be all right, like Zayn’s safe. “I can’t see him with someone else again.”

“You’re both idiots,” Louis mutters, but Liam’s hand is warm on Zayn’s forehead, and he’s so exhausted by everything, and Zayn’s asleep before Liam can reply, before he can think of what it means.

\---

The next week is even worse. It’s the last week before vacation, so all the teachers are piling on tests; Zayn’s show is on Thursday and he’s frantically trying to finish everything for that, and—and Liam’s still going, all hot eyes and searching hands and that devastating body. By Wednesday, Zayn is strung out enough that Niall takes one look at him as he scampers up the stairs to school, and offers him a crisp. Niall never shares his food.

The crisp helps a little, the comforting squeeze of his shoulder helps more, and Niall’s sheer presence, still chill and simple and undemanding as ever, helps most. But then there’s the English test that’s had Harry pulling his hair out, which is about as okay as Zayn expected, and in maths they’re doing a review for the test tomorrow that Zayn is absolutely going to fail because, well, maths. Lunch is him bolting down a sandwich that Liam hands him because he’s forgotten food the last two days and running to the art room for a few more minutes of perfecting his finished drawings.

He’s on his way to chem after bidding Perrie good-bye with a hasty hug of thanks for cleaning up after him when Anderson finds him, blocking his way so Zayn runs straight into him again.

“Feeling klutzy today, Malik?” Anderson mocks, drawing out his last name tauntingly.

Zayn sighs, rolls his eyes. He does not have time for this. He and Louis have a presentation today and if he’s not there Louis will have to do it all and things might explode, and he wants to be there for that. So he just raises his eyebrows.

“Not very talkative, are you? Probably having trouble with English, because it’s not some Muslim language”

Which doesn’t even make sense. Zayn keeps looking, lets one corner of his mouth curl up in his best smirk. He’s got his leather jacket on today over a black t-shirt and dark jeans; he knows from experience it can be a menacing look.

“What?” Anderson demands. He takes a step forward. Zayn doesn’t flinch back. Maybe if he gets punched again he’ll get out of some work. And this—this is another thing he can’t change, another thing he won’t give in on, and it’s really so unimportant right now that Zayn doesn’t even care what happens. “What!”

He’s nearly touching Zayn now, their noses almost bumping. Maybe there is something to Perrie’s theory, Zayn thinks idly.

“Just thinking how sad it is that you’re not even particularly good at bullying,” Zayn says at last, coolly. And calmly steps around him while he’s trying to flail for a retort, and continues down the hall.

“That was brilliant!”

Of course Liam is there, Zayn muses as he slows. He always is, these days. “It was stupid. I’m lucky he wasn’t in a worse mood. He can still put me on the ground.”

“I wouldn’t let him.” It sounds like a vow, serious and reverberating. This is why Zayn will never, ever get over Liam, no matter how much he tries—because he can say something like that and mean it, down to his bones. “But I’ve told you how brilliant it is, the way to treat him, right?”

“I just ignore him.”

“Exactly!” Liam runs a hand over his hair. He’s almost bouncing as he walks, excitable as Harry. “You—you don’t care. I’ve always cared, too much.”

Zayn shrugs. “There was never anything I could do about it, so why bother?”

“You could have.” Liam grabs his shoulder, spins him around so he can grab the other, and stares into his eyes. They’re serious, without the teasing, heated glint they’ve had whenever he looks at Zayn for the past week, but there’s a hint—it’s not lust, or it’s not just lust; it’s almost the reflected light of the moon off the lake. “You could hide, or something, and you—you never ever cave into them, and that’s—” he swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing. Zayn glances at it, then his eyes catch on Liam’s lips on the way up, full and pink. He watches them shapes the next words. “You’re—it’s amazing, Zayn. And you never realize it.”

Zayn waits for the catch, the flirtation in it—but it doesn’t come. It’s just Liam’s ineffable sincerity, that soul-deep sense of honor that means he has to say it even if it doesn’t mean what Zayn wants it to mean anymore. How is he supposed to resist that?

He isn’t, that’s how, and doesn’t mean Liam’s eyes as he replies, as evenly as he can, “It’s just me, Li.”

Liam shakes his head, slowly. “I—never mind.” He lets go, takes a step back. “You’ve got to get to class.”

Zayn could ask. But he does need to get to class, and he doesn’t need to dig himself into a larger masochistic hole by hearing faint praise. So instead he nods. “Yeah. See you at the thing tomorrow? I’ll be skipping lunch and probably everything else to set up.”

“I’ll be there with bells on,” Liam grins, and Zayn chuckles before he strides off. He can almost imagine Liam looks wistful as he watches him go.

\---

Zayn’s almost shaking with nerves as the doors open to the show. It’s nothing complicated or extravagant—just all the senior art students’ work set up on easels in the gym, grouped by the series, with a few hors d’ouevres on a table at one end. There are Perrie’s wild collages of color and magazine clippings and movie posters, Jade’s Gauguin-inspired paintings of naked women, some other drawings, one kid’s wood sculptures—which are pretty sick—and everything else in between.

His family comes in nearly as soon as the doors open, coo admiringly over his drawings—Doniya nudges him teasingly at Liam’s, and Safaa claps excitedly—go on to admire his friends’ work and chat for a little while with the teacher, but it’s a school night for Safaa so they’re gone after forty-five minutes, before the boys even show up.

He mingles for fifteen minutes, chats with Perrie and Jade, makes up some things about the meaning of his work to the other families who stop by his easels—and a few non-family professionals, which has butterflies rising in his stomach. But he swallows them down, and he thinks he’s doing alright as he discusses his choice of medium with a local gallery owner.

Then, “Zayner!” He has just enough time to brace himself before Harry’s wrapping an arm around his neck and hooking his chin over his shoulder.

“Hey, Haz.” Zayn smiles apologetically at the woman, who just grins, promises to send him an email, and moves on. Zayn disentangles himself from Harry to turn around to face the other boys.

  
They’re all in their best, formal slacks and button down shirts and Harry’s even got a tie loose around his neck, though that’s more a fashion statement than anything else. “Hey, guys.”

“Hi.” Zayn steels himself before he looks, because—yes, Liam’s breathtaking all in black, broad shoulders and narrow waist and crinkly-eyed smile. Zayn gulps, rubs his fingers over the black jeans that are his concession to semi-formal. “These are yours?”

“Yeah.” If he had butterflies before, it’s nothing to how he feels as he steps back to give the boys their first real looks at the drawings. He doesn’t care what strangers think, not really. He can’t change that, and it doesn’t affect him. But for the boys—these are his love for them on these easels, and if they don’t like them—or worse, if they don’t _understand_ them…

“Lookit me!” Niall yelps excitedly though, and moves closer to his, “That’s me! And there’s my guitar, look, you can see the dent—”

“Forget you, look at me!’ Louis elbows him out of the way. “Zayn, mate, these are brilliant.”

Harry throws an arm around him, pulls him close into his side. When Zayn tilts his head to look at him, his eyes are bright with tears around his smile. “Thank you,” he murmurs into Zayn’s ear, “It’s—it’s enough. Thank you.” Zayn presses a kiss to his temple, because he does love him, as clearly as the lines on his drawing. Just not enough.

Zayn grins at the boys when he pulls away from Harry, at their excited smiles and chatter. But—Liam hasn’t said anything. He turns to him, to explain, to excuse, to do _something_ —

Liam’s just standing in front of his painting, his jaw literally dropped.

“Zayn…” he breathes out, strangled.

“What?” Niall starts, then, “Oh.”

The Liam in the drawing stands on a beach, just in board shorts. The sun is bright over his head, to go by the shadows he casts, and he’s looking back over his shoulder at the viewer—at Zayn—his eyes crinkling with happiness. His hand’s reaching out to invite him in, and his other’s strong on his hip, and there’s nothing particularly telling about the pose, but—Zayn couldn’t help it, the loving detail of it, the way he drew his heart into it. Into each muscles his fingers had touched, into the unrelenting beauty of it, and the strength, the way his chin is tilted up and his arms are tensed as if ready to protest, to anchor, to comfort, any and all if needed.

“Oh, Zayn.” Harry’s arm tightens around his shoulders.

“Why did you two break up again?” Louis demands, almost angry with it.

Zayn swallows. “It was just a summer fling, Louis, it—”

“That’s not what you said before,” Harry interrupts him. He looks confused, but he’s talking quicker than usual, fast enough that Zayn doesn’t have time to gag him or tackle him or somehow stop him before it’s too late. “You said it wasn’t just a fling, but Liam started ignoring you when you left, even though you wanted—”

“Yes, thank you, Harry,” Zayn cuts him off, but it’s too late. Liam’s spinning, turning to him with wide-eyed astonishment. “Li, I didn’t mean—”

“What did you mean?” Liam cuts him off, and it’s his take-charge voice, but there’s pain in it too, and something like anticipation.

Zayn glances around at all the people in the gym, at the lads, but—honesty. No regrets. Harry squeezes his shoulder, and lets him out from the shelter of his arms. “I know you only wanted the summer, or the sex, I guess. I can take a hint. It’s fine. I’m dealing with it. It’s what I do, right?”

“You—” Liam’s jaw goes slack for an instant, then he’s reaching out and grabbing Zayn’s wrist and wrenching him away, through the gym and into the hallway, which is empty because they’re all coming in from outside and no one’s in the school this late.

“Li, babe, what are you—” Zayn starts, because that is his final project and also kind of his life’s work to date, because he’s dealing with it but this could hurt, talking about it could burn—but then Liam pushes him back against the lockers so the clang of his back hitting them echoes, plants his hands over Zayn’s arms, and cuts him off with his lips on his.

And oh, Zayn’s missed this, the all consuming _need,_ frantic and hungry and almost painful, Liam’s fingers curling into his skin hard enough to bruise and his tongue fucking in and out of Zayn’s mouth and his body pressing him against the wall so Zayn couldn’t move even if he wanted to, like Liam would die if he moved, like Liam can’t live with them touching less than everywhere, like the only breath Liam wants is in Zayn’s mouth. And Zayn kisses back just as hard, as desperate, because he just wants, wants to leave marks on Liam’s hips from his nails and leave his mouth swollen from his teeth and steal Liam’s breath away.

It’s only when Zayn feels the weight of Liam’s erection pressing against his thigh that he remembers himself. Remembers what he can’t do.

He jerks his head to the side, away from Liam, and slams his hands back into the wall. Liam lets him go, though his eyes are dark as he back off enough for them to feel like two separate people again.

“Fuck, Liam!” Zayn snaps, “What are you doing?” He’s spent so damn long accepting this, trying to put this summer behind him, keeping the peace, even when Liam’s been fucking seducing him, but this—this is too far. This hurts like Anderson’s fists didn’t. He doesn’t let Liam answer before he goes on, “What do you want me to do? I told you, I’m dealing with the fact that you just want to fuck me and I—I was fine with you not being out and I am fine with you being out but you can’t do this to me and expect me to take it! It hurts, Liam! It fucking burns and I can only take so bloody much!”

Liam’s breath is coming roughly, but he pushes his forehead against the cool metal next to Zayn’s ear. “We are such idiots.”

“Why?” Zayn hisses. He shoves against Liam’s arm, but he’s immovable. “Why, exactly?”

Liam pulls back enough to look Zayn in the face, but he keeps his arms in place, keeps Zayn pinned. He looks terrified and relieved and amused and awestruck. “You never said, you never do, and I’m okay with that, that’s a part of you, that you put things in your pictures and do stuff and don’t say it. But—you never said, and I didn’t think—”

“What the fuck do you mean?” Zayn demands. He is so sick of Liam and his mixed signals.

It’s not even his brave look, just sad, or regretful, or something Zayn can’t put words to filling Liam’s face as he sighs. “I did ignore you after this summer. It wasn’t well done of me, I know that. I knew it. But I didn’t think you would be here, and it would have been hard, staying—well, in the closet, with you—if we—”

“I got that, Liam—”

“No, you have to listen.” Liam moves a hand, but just to grab at Zayn’s wrist instead. It should be hard, but it’s gentle, a caress like he might break. “I stopped it, but I thought—I didn’t—Zayn, I was—I am—desperately in love with you. I think I’ve been since I saw you on that beach, looking so cool, and then you started joking with me about superheroes, and I was just—gone.”

Zayn can feel the words in his bones, like a thrumming, vibrating echo, like _yes_. But Zayn’s never trusted getting what he wants. “Then why—”

“Because I didn’t know you felt anything!” It bursts out of Liam like a dam breaking. Zayn can only gape. How couldn’t he know? It had been in every word he said, every look he gave, even if he never said the words. “You—I was so bloody infatuated with you, so desperate for anything you’d give me, and you’re really hard to read, Zayn, and why would you have felt anything about me? So I stopped it, because what was the point of risking so much when it would never be what I wanted? And then—you were here, and I get that you wouldn’t go out with me when I wasn’t out, I understand, but—there was barely three weeks between your last text to me and you starting with Harry, and I figured—well, clearly I was forgettable, and you were still brilliant and everything, and—”

“Never.” This is too much, or not enough, but it’s nothing Zayn ever expected, and he almost hurts with it, with the ache in Liam’s eyes. “Liam, it was—god, it was solace, or something. I mean, I love Harry, I do, but—he’s not you.”

“You could have said something.” Liam reaches out to trace Zayn’s lips, a whisper of warmth.

“When? When you had dumped me without a word? When I would have been your dirty little secret?”

“When I was out?” Liam suggests, with a hint of cheekiness but more real force, “When I’ve been throwing myself at you—”

“I couldn’t. Not when—” Honesty, at last, he guesses. That thing that’s been at the heart of him for all these long months, the biggest thing he couldn’t change. “When I’m so in love with you.” He can feel Liam’s breath whoosh out of him, can see the light rise in his eyes. “And I thought—well, the sex was great, wasn’t it? I knew you enjoyed that. And it was a seduction, babe, not wooing.”

“I knew you were still attracted to me.” Liam doesn’t look ashamed. “How else was I supposed to get you? I figured—once I had you, I could work from there. I could—I _would_ make you fall for me this time. But—the way you drew me—if I had seen that earlier—I know how to read your drawings, I do—”

“I wouldn’t have showed it to you. I was terrified to today.”

Liam leans in, so his voice is hot against Zayn’s ear, but his other hand is curled around Zayn’s waist, big and protective and solid. “Thought you might have used the other one, the one from the summer.”

“That one’s mine,” Zayn growls, and then he presses his lips to Liam’s again.

And it’s soft this time, that gentleness mixed with passion only Liam has, worship and desire and protection tied up in one. Zayn’s hands tangle in Liam’s hair, pull him in, closer; he hooks a leg around his calf to get his body closer, because he has been on the edge of this for days, and—now—it’s a rush, that fire, and it’s better than anything he’s ever felt before because it’s Liam and he wants him and he loves him. Zayn breaks contact just enough to trail kisses down from Liam’s lips, pauses to bite and suck where his neck meets the strong line of his jaw, because Liam’s his, his, his, and—

“Oh, bless,” Louis coos.

Zayn’s got mind enough left to shoot two fingers in his direction.

“That’s graphic,” Niall points out.

“Shut up! They’re finally happy,” Harry hisses, then, louder, “Don’t worry, I’ve got this. The closet by the locker rooms big enough for a blow job, if you squish.”

It’s too much. Zayn turns to bury his face in Liam’s neck, laughing helplessly against his skin “Why are they my friends?”

Liam’s laughing too, crinkly eyes and shaking shoulders, and his arms are tight around Zayn, like he’d never want to let go. “You’re stuck with us now,” he murmurs in Zayn’s ear, sending a bolt of heat through him he soothes with a hand down Zayn’s back. “Just accept it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Liked it? Want to talk about it/anything at all? Come say hi on [ tumblr!](http://ridiculouslittleidiots.tumblr.com/)  
> 


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